Suggestions for the improvement of our towns and houses

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45. M^O,

SUGGESTIONS

FOR THE

IMPROVEMENT

OP OUR

TOWNS AND HOUSES

By T. J. MASLEN, Esq.

MA.NY TBA.R8 A. LIEUTENANT IN THE ARMT.

LONDON :
SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, COENHILL.

1843.

London t

Printed by Stewart and Murray,

Old Bailey.

PREFACE.

In offering the following Suggestions for the im-
provement of Towns and Houses to the candid
attention of the British Public, I can safely say-
that my sole object is the good of my fellow-
creatures, by consulting their happiness, and add-
ing to their comfort and delight; and if I have
given my opinions with too much freedom, I beg
leave to plead my enthusiasm in so good a cause,
and my deep concern at seeing the most ill-con-
trived and unsightly plans from time to time put
in execution, with an utter disregard to the conve-
nience and healthful enjoyment of all whose feel-
ings should never be lost sight of.

Numerous small plots of open ground around
every town are already marked out for building
upon, and the plans of the streets already traced,

A 2

IV PREFACE.

with the utmost ingenuity, so as to crowd as many-
little streets, and build as many little houses,
without an inch of garden, as it is possible to
huddle together ; the streets so narrow and devoid
of plan, as to render impracticable any system of
sewerage or drainage. The Legislature would do
well to pass a temporary enactment to prevent all
these narrow lines of intended houses from being
proceeded with, rather than, by suffering them to
be thus built, inevitably incur increased trouble
and expense in their after-cleansing and draining;
at the same time to cause all the plans to be
traced anew, with a little more judgment, and
also enact some control over the covetousness of
private parties.

The authorities of a town should be diligent in
the prevention of such evils as too narrow streets
and lanes. It would be far better to have fewer in-
habitants, and those comfortable, than a numerous
population, living crowded together, and up to their
knees in filth. The endeavour should be, not to
try how many pitiful, narrow, small streets can be
crowded on a certain small space of ground, but
how many streets can be well sewered and drained,
and made of a good width and length, so as to
be most handsome, most comfortable, airy and

PREFACE. V

healthy : the houses could then be easily enlarged
at any future period, so as to render the streets
still handsomer. Now this cannot be done if the
streets are spoiled at first, by tracing them too
narrow, too short, and crowding too many together
on a small piece of ground.

A long straight street can be more easily drained
than a crooked short street ; and a wide street
enjoys more sun, is lighter, more cheerful, more
airy, easier of thoroughfare, and possesses greater
capabilities of improvement and beautifying than
a narrow street. One that is both straight, wide,
and long, can scarcely fail of becoming handsome
in the course of years, however humble its in-
habitants may be originally, as some of the owners
pf the property therein will, from time to time,
acquire wealth, and improve the houses they
live in.

In every possible view of the subject, it would
be wise to trace the plaus of new streets,' from the
first, as wide, as long, and as straight as possible,
adopting the reasonable measurements laid down
in the following pages.

It used to be very generally remarked, a few
years ago, that most new houses were run up in
an incredibly short time, with walls, joists, and

VI PREFACE.

rafters most dangerously thin and slight ; the con-
sequence was, as might have been expected,
many accidents occurred from the falling in of
walls and floors. I remember about twenty years
ago, one or two whole rows of new houses were
blown down by a gust of wind, as completely as
an edifice raised by a child with a pack of cards.
I am not sure that a building law has not been
enacted since then, which put a stop to such
gingerbread houses ; but I still consider the style
of building much too slight, both in walling and in
timber; moreover, the builders are most unneces-
sarily stingy in space, half the rooms in the king-
dom not being large enough to swing a cat in.

An opinion has been for some time past gaining
ground with the reflecting portion of the public,
that something must be done to better the condi-
tion of the labouring classes, who are becoming
so exceedingly numerous by the increase of the
population, that their numbers alone are embar-
rassing, at the same time that their reverence for
superiors, and respect for the classes above them
is evidently much weakened, and likely to be
succeeded by vindictive feelings and hatred,
springing from their miserable condition, and
what little education they may have, not being

PREFACE. Vll

based on a religious foundation. Too true it is
that the working classes of Great Britain are not
happy ; and whether in or out of employment,
their homes are generally so uncomfortable and
wretched, that they naturally become discontented,
and make comparisons between their own misera-
ble houses and the better dwellings and greater
comforts of every class above them; thus when
there is any riotous ebullition of passion in an
accumulated mass of poor people, they seem to
think of nothing else but burning and destroying
or plundering other people's houses and pro-
perty, either by way of retaliation and revenge
for being better housed than themselves, or else
to level all to the same depressed condition as
their own.

A great step is, however, about to be made by
Government, in the universal education of the
people, on the principle that there is a Gody — i. e.,
they are to have an education based on the
Christian Religion; and never before, in the
annals of England, has so great, so important, so
blessed a measure been propounded for the sure
good of the nation. May the Lord God of heaven
vouchsafe his blessing on the work, yea, " Prosper
thou the good work, O Lord God !"

yill PREFACE

■ And next to the support of true religion, and
religious education, which is the only certain
foundation of temporal and eternal happiness,
it must always be the duty of a Christian Govern-
ment to endeavour to improve the people and
promote their happiness by other means — second-
ary ones, certainly, but not the less indispensable,
besides religion and education ; and one of the
first and most efiectual steps of this nature, would
be to give the people comfortable domestic homes^
by the improvement of their houses and streets,
and a general system of annexing a garden to
every house, at the same time encouraging our
domestic commerce with our Colonies, and our
domestic trade, rather than foreign commerce ;
planting new settlements every alternate year,
and thus giving a stimulus to the home (and by
this means, certainly more to be depended upon
and more permanent) employment of our great
population, by determined and open encourage-
ment of emigration.

A garden to every house. would gradually inure
to out-door work, people whose callings for the
most part confine them in-doors.

It is high time that a general reform in building
were commenced throughout the kingdom, and.

PREFACE. IX

with the improvement of towns, be made a compul'
son/ measure ; I say compulsory, because there
are certain people and certain classes who are
afraid of loss, and who make a point of opposing
every change or alteration that does not, at first
sight, appear to advance their own interests ; but
it may be asked — who has ever heard of any
persons being injured by the improvements of the
buildings or streets of a town ? and even if there
have been any old interests injured, yet these must
sometimes be disregarded when a general good
is to be obtained.

No doubt a compulsory law to compel builders
to erect good houses and cottages would, at first,
raise a host of opposition from petty capitalists
and men who make a trade of building hovels
scarcely fit for swine to dwell in ; but if such a law
could put a stop to the operations of the latter
class of petty tyrants, it would be a great public
benefit ; there would then be no more miserable
hovels run up by people who do not possess the
means or the will to erect better buildings ; and
the working classes who now pay shamefully
heavy rents, and who are the victims of the cupi-
dity of such cruel landlords, would have good and
comfortable houses for the same high rents which

X PREFACE.

they now pay for dwellings more calculated to
produce disease than comfort.

Building has hitherto been a noted money-mak-
ing speculation, instead of being pursued as a
delightful pleasure and an act of benevolence, in
affording happiness to our fellow-creatures; and
the principal argument used by the opposers of a
Buildings Regulation Act, is, that the poor cannot
afford to pay sufficient rent or interest for the out-
lay of money on a good cottage, therefore they
must be content to live in hovels. But as a man
ought not to trade beyond his capital, so ought
not a man to build without a sufficient capital to
build properly, and a cottage ought not to be
deemed propesly built, that has not substantial
brick or stone walls, a good roof, capacious rooms,
a good cellar,* doors and windows of liberal di-
mensions, a passage from the outer door and a
staircase, both separate from the rooms ; a back-
yard or small garden with a convenience therein ;
and the chambers of the dwelling of a good height

* A cellar would be a great comfort to every poor family. It is
the custom in the northern counties to build the coal-house at a
distance from the cottage, and the women have to fetch in their
coals every day in the worst of weather ; but this is nothing com-
pared to the vexation from the frequent robberies of coals commit-
ted every winter by bad characters who are ever prowling about.

PREFACE. XI

and fitted with cupboards, &c. Such are the out-
lines of a complete cottage, and where one family
could not afford to pay the rent, it should be
adapted for two families (and not more), but the
regulation should not be departed from, or evaded
by erecting a building in a slight manner.

Imperfections and faults in a building or a
town, are frequently more apparent to a perfect
stranger, and more quickly detected by him, than
they are by an old inhabitant of the place ; and,
acting under this impression, I purposely visited
many towns, and took considerable pains and
time to mature some of the plans on the spot,
hoping that my suggestions would be received in
good part, and my example followed by persons
still more capable of pointing out improvements
desirable in towns.

Some of these plans I have now detailed, to
show what might be done, by way of example to
other towns, whose faults and inconveniences may
have been heretofore overlooked by their inhabi-
tants. My wish is to stimulate the principal in-
habitants of every town in the kingdom, to take
up the cause of improvement with ardour, and to
institute a universal fashion of inspecting, survey-
ing, and planning, and a universal setting to work

Xll PREFACE.

of masses of our unemployed masons, bricklayers,
carpenters, painters, gardeners, del vers, and la-
bourers.

There should be a special commission of some
of the first architects, engineers, and scientific
men of the day, to go through the kingdom and
reconnoitre and inspect every city and town, and
prepare plans for improvements and embellish-
ments, to be executed as time, means, and oppor-
tunity might offer.

Now that we are at peace with every foreign
State ; with an abundance of unemployed money,
and nearly a nation of unemployed people at com-
mand, there could not be a more appropriate
period for undertaking numerous great or national
works.

Perhaps some explanation may be thought ne-
cessary to account for my undertaking to write a
work on building, not being an architect. For the
information then, of all interested readers, I beg
to state, that although I am not an architect, I
have had almost as much experience as many a
person who is one professionally. From the early
age of sixteen my most favourite studies and
drawings at a school in France, were plans of
houses and towns, fortifications and maps, and

PREFACE. Xm

the five orders of architecture ; and this fondness
for architecture accompanied me through life, and
impelled me to attend all the new buildings and
new streets that used to spring up like mushrooms
around London when I was a youth. The ex-
ceedingly deep and strong foundations of the
Bank of England, in Bartholomew-lane, first gave
me a notion of strength in building. My father
(who was a partner in the firm of Bingley, Pitt,
and Maslen) wished to bind me to an architect ;
but I longed to go abroad, and at length obtained
an appointment for India, and in that fairyland of
castles and palaces, I allowed no opportunity to
escape me of seeing a great variety of buildings
constructed, diligently attending their daily pro-
gress, in whatever part of India I happened to be.
1 saw some of the stupendous bomb-proof maga-
zines and stores erected in Fort St. George ;
stone barracks at two or three other places ; im- ,
mense bridges at Beypour and Seringapatam ;
besides innumerable smaller buildings.* It will
scarcely be said that I have not gained some ex-
perience in the subject I presume to treat of.
And if the reader will excuse the literary faults of

* I was also an industrious draughtsman ; I gave away in India
one hundred and fifty of my own drawings. Excuse my egotism.

XIV PREFACE.

the book, as not being the production of a pro-
fessed writer, the object I have in view may be
thought of sufficient importance to serve as an
apology for its publication.

The Author.

Blackstone Edge, June \st^ 1843.

SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS.

London : —

The Thames embankmects and Quay-streets

New Barge-harbour in Southwark

Victoria Park and other new parks

London Boulevards or new Malls

London Palais Royal

New Arcades 1 . . .

Triumphal arches for the entrances to London

Fountains and Reservoirs

West Smithfield Market

Whitechapel Butchers' shops and Abattoirs

Holborn and Whitechapel-streets colonnaded

New street from Waterloo-bridge to Bloomsbury

New street from Picketrstreet to Holborn

Circus round Temple Bar

Royal Square for working classes near Wych-street

New street from Farringdon-street to Islington Park

Shoreditch and Norton Falgate widened, made straight

and colonnaded
One-sided streets for new Mews
Guildhall, King-street, and Queen-street
Public garden at back of the Mansion House
Farringdon-street and public conveniences
Pall Mall joined to the Green Park
Triumphal arch at Spring Gardens, and the Horse Guards

closed up, being a strictly military post
Cheapside and the Poultry widened
Cornhill and Leadenhall-street widened

Page

1

6

8

9

9

12

14

15

16

16

17

17

18

18

18

18

18
19
19
20
20
23

23
23
23

XVI CONTENTS.

London — continued. Page
Circus at the top of Gracechurch-street . . .23
Aldgate widened to the East India House . . 24
Great Tower-street and Little Eastcheap made straight . 24
Reckless spoliation of the Tower esplanade by the form-
ation of the St. Catherine's Docks . . .25
Improvement for the neighbourhood of the Royal Mint . 25
New street from the Mint to Poplar . . .25
New street from Poplar to Stepney Park . . 26
Two half Crescents on the top of Tower-hill . . 26
Tower of London remodelled . . . .27

New Citadel on the Isle of Dogs . • .33

New Basin for Colliers at Poplar . . .36
Width of all future streets fixed according to classification,

by Act of Parliament . . . .41

Railways in the City, and damage to the Minories • 43

Egyptian Obelisk . . . . .44

London Pyramid . . . . .45

Proposed alteration in the Green Park . . .46
Want of a Bois-de- Boulogne and an Avenue de Neuilly . 46

New Law Courts . . . . .48

Successful experiment in wood pavement . . 50
Enlargement of south side of St. Paul's Church-yard, and

new street from thence down to the water . . 52
Plans for new squares in the Northern and Eastern parts

of London . . . . . .52

Vacant ground fit for Parks . . . .53

New British and Foreign Picture Gallery and Museum 54

Continuation of Camberwell Canal to Lambeth . . 55

Error in the site of the new Houses of Parliament . 57
Grand square with open detached colonnade at Seven

Dials . . . . . .58

Holborn Viaduct . . . . .59

Walhalla or Pantheon . . . . .59

Joining of Whitechapel-road to High Holborn . . 60

Avenues or Malls round the metropolis . . .61

Elysilim Fields, and Field of Mars . . .63

Foot-bridge over the Thames condemned . . 63

Grand flight of steps down to the Thames at the Tower . 64

Part of Kensington Gardens added to Hyde Park • 6Q

CONTENTS. XVll

York : — Page

Disgraceful state of the streets and houses . . 68

The ancient city-walls ought to be levelled, and formed

into raised promenades . . . .71

New ground-plan of the city suggested . • .71

Necessity of widening the streets . . .74

Proposed improvement of the river Ouse, and the form-
ation of a promenade on both banks of the river . 75
Surprising neglect of warm or tepid baths . . 76

Suggestions for a hackney-coach stand, a general ceme-
tery, and the erection of two new bridges . . 76
Objections to the custom of holding markets in streets . 77
Disappointment at first seeing York Castle, and sugges-
tions for its improvement . . • .77
York favourably situated for a University . . 79
Improvements required about the Cathedral, and the

approaches to it . . . . .80

Sketch of the proposed new quarters of the city . 88

Leeds : —

Culpable neglect of the condition of numerous masses of

the working population . . . .93

The recent Act of Parliament for enforcing a better

system of drainage in large towns, a step in the

right direction . . . . .94

The necessity of providing comfortable and convenient

cottages for the working classes . . .96

Disgraceful state of the river Aire at Leeds . . 98

An affecting picture of the town of Leeds » 100. 106

Captain Vetch's Report on the Sewerage of Leeds . 101

A law for regulating the erection of new streets and

altering old ones, recommended . . .108

Suggested improvements of the streets of the town of

Leeds ...... 109

Garden grounds. Botanical Gardens, public amusements

and Parks . . . . . 110. 112

Great public thoroughfares and markets wanted . 113

Halifax : —

Present state of the town . . . .115

Public buildings all out of sight ■, . .117

a

XVlll CONTENTS.

Halifax — continued. Page

Funds for improvements might be raised by shares . 118

Proposed grand entrances and streets . . • 119

Other streets and divisions . . . .121

Picture Gallery, Royal Exchange, Piazzas, &c. • 123
Cattle markets out of the town .... 123
Embellishment of Law Hill .... 124

Botanical better than Zoological Gardens . .126

Feasibility of proposed plans asserted . . .127

Manchester : —

Present disordered and scattered state . . .128

Fine buildings hidden . . . . .129

Widening and straightening principal streets . .130

Situation of churches . . . . .131

Great approaches to be altered . . . .131

Arcades, Gallery for pictures, &c. . . . 1 32

Chester: —

The city-wall to be repaired and completed . . 1 35

Inns and taverns of the same sign • • .136

Foot-pavements . • . . . .136

Liverpool :—

Crowded localities to be cleared and improved, and the

poor brought out of cellars . . .137

Removal of the Battery, and erection of barracks . 138

West-end swamp to make an ornamental water . 138

Removal of warehouses for hotels, &c., at West end . 139
New survey recommended for future generations to abide

by . . . . . . . 139

More cleanliness recommended . . .140

Colchester : —

Details of former proposal for improvement . .140

Opposition motives combatted . . . .142

Duties and powers of Commissioners . . . 142

Investment of capital in improvements, tontines, &c. . 146
Sheds adjoining dwelling-houses .... 147
Watering the highways ..... 150

Hull : —

Proposed promenade round the town canvassed . . 151

Variation in the plan recommended . . 152

CONTENTS. XIX

Page
Beautifying towns in Australia . . . .154

Private Dwelling-houses: —

Choice of situation for building in the country . .159

Indispensable qualities of a foundation . . .160

Private drains should be formed for every house « .161

Mortar y directions for its proper proportions • .162

Bricks and stone . . . . .163

Walls, external, party, and partition . . .163

Shape and size of rooms should be rectangular . . 165

Piazzas or verandahs, porticos, &c. . . .167

Doors, their proper height and width . . .167

"Windows — remarks on the Window Tax , 168. 171

Chimneys, fireplaces, stoves, and cupboards . .172

Staircases, their proper dimensions and material . 176

Entrance Halls . • . • . .178
Floors to all Houses and cottages should be made of stone 179

Roofs . . . . . . .181

Coping-stones . . . . . .185

Cellars, requisite to every house and cottage . .186
Front Gardens, their desirableness, and recommended to

be more generally attached to the cottages of the
poor ...... 186

Villages versus single cottages . . . .188

Cloacina . . . . . . 189

Clay or mud huts should be prohibited by law . . 190

General Improvements: —

Bridges ...... 192

Plans of towns and streets for Australia and new Colonies . 192
Public Sewers .... . . 198

Rivers in towns . . . • .201

Fairs and cattle markets ought not to be held in streets

of towns ....
Pumps and wells
Roads and foot-pavements, protect against

them with ashes from burnt coals
Private streets ....
Courts and alleys

Cellar-entrances on foot- pavements
Steps and scrapers

. 204

. 206
repairing

. 208

. 210

. 212

. 213

. 215

XX CONTENTS.

Page

Naming streets and numbering houses in towns .

. 216

Post Offices in country towns, — two requisite

. 218

Country houses should not be built in rows

. 222

Public swimming tanks, or baths

• 222

Warming and ventilating buildings

. 225

On the construction of chimneys

. 230

Factory chimneys . . . ,

. 234

Consumption of smoke in manufacturing towns .

. 234

Concluding Remarks:—-

Buildings Regulation Bill

. 237

Cleanliness of towns . . . ,

. 240

Houses at Paris ^ . . . ,

. 240

Opposition to improvements ;

• 242

Modification of Window Tax

. 243

New Penalties . . . . ,

. 243

The building of Ten new Cities .

. 245

SUGGESTIONS

FOR THE

IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

LONDON.

It is with the greatest diffidence that I venture
to question the eligibility of the plans of an emi-
nent architect,* for improving the banks of the
Thames in the metropolis. He proposes to raise
an embankment within the water-way, and thus,
by narrowing the course of the stream, cause a
higher rise of the water, and consequently an in-
creased depth for the navigation of the river.

I have seen a good many broad rivers and
flooded lands in India, and, taking a lesson from
what I have seen, I much fear that the conse-
quences of the proposed plan would be, to cause
the country to be overflowed higher up the stream
during any unusually wet weather, and the cellars
of the houses to be inundated along the embank-
ments ; for if the stream be pent up in a narrower
course, and impeded in its current, it will find
itself a vent by spreading out its waters over the
country : and this is not the only objection against

♦ Mr. Walker.
B

/;

2 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

the plan; it is not a mere embankment that is
wanted along the Thames throughout the city, but
a quay-street, a handsome street, open along the
water-side.

So far from making the Thames narrower in
London, it should be made as wide as possible,
and shallow also (above the bridges) ; for we do
not want ships to come up past London-bridge :
if they did they would at once destroy the beauty
of the stream, which mainly consists in its width,
while its comparative safety is insured by the ab-
sence of great depth. If the water was made
very deep at the sides of the river, as the fore-
going plan proposes, the accidents from drowning
would be multiplied tenfold every year. I have
bathed, in my younger days, from off the coal-
barges that lie opposite the Strand, and can recol-
lect I walked some distance towards the middle
of the river at low water, and I attribute the rarity
of accidents from drowning, solely to the circum-
stance of the shoalness of its bottom.

The river is deep enough above the bridges for
small steamers, barges, and pleasure-yachts, and
these small craft are the only vessels that will not
obstruct the view of the water-landscape. I am
far from considering even the muddy bottom of the
river, when the tide is out, as an ugly sight: it
affords entertaining variety to the every-day scene,
quite as much as the ebb and flow of the tide on
the sea-shore : were the river at all times at one
height, and one depth, and the bottom never to
be seen, it would be for ever a monotonous water-
view, and tiring to look at. If ever the width of
the river should be Contracted in London, great

J.ONDON. 3

and violent flopds could not spread out as they do
now, over its present broad bo^om ; but they
would bear down with such tremendous power that
they would shake some of the bridges to their very
foundationsi and perhaps cause a waterfall under
some one of them again, similar to what used to
prevail under old London-bridge.

I venture to recommend that the river be made
as wide as possible ; and that every projection
and excrescence that juts out into the water (es-
pecially the water-face of Somerset House), be
cut off to make the line of the shore as direct
as possible, from angle to angle, and from bend to
bend of the river, all through the cities of West-
minster and London, to the nearest angle of the
Isle of Dogs.*

* I beg to insert the following quotation from Kuight*s '' Lon-
don/' Vol. I., as the plans detailed are so very similar to those I
recoinmend : nevertheless I had compiled the whole of this boo]c
before I saw the above work, so that it cannot be said I borrowed
my ideas from it : —

" After the great fire of London, Sir Christopher Wren designed
a plan or model of a new city, in which the deformity and in-
conveniences of the old town were remedied, by the enlarging
the streets and lanes, carrying them as nearly parallel to one
another as might be ; avoiding, if compatible with greater con-
veniences, all acute angles ; by seating all the parochial churches
conspicuous and insular ; by forming the most public places into
large piazzas ; by uniting the halls of the twelve chief companies
into one regular quadrangle, near to Guildhall ; by making a quay
along the whole bank of the river, from the West-end to the Tower.
The streets to be of three magnitudes ; the three principal leading
straight through the City, and one or two cross streets, to be at
least ninety feet wide ; others sixty feet ; and lanes about thirty
feet, excluding all narrow dark alleys without thoroughfares, and
courts.

^* The practicability of this plan, without loss to any man, or in-

B 2

4 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

The good citizens of London may go on alter-
ing and improving the metropolis, century after
century, but they will never give it the finishing
stroke of perfection, until they can boast of a quay-
street or river-parade ; a boulevard ; and a Palais
Royal.

It is proceeding on the worst system in the

fringement of any property, was at that time demonstrated, and all
material objections fully weighed and answered. The only, and as
it happened insurmountable difficulty remaining, was the obstinate
averseness of great part of the citizens to alter their old properties,
and to recede from building their houses again on the old ground
and foundations ; as also the distrust in many, and unwillingness
to give up their properties, though only for a little time, into the
hands of public trustees or commissioners, till they might be dis-
pensed to them again, with more advantage to themselves than
otherwise was possible to be effected* Thus the opportunity in a
great degree was lost, of making the new city the most magnificent,
as well as commodious for health and trade, of any upon earth.

<< Wren's plan would undoubtedly have secured to us, both of the
two great objects which should be sought in all our metropolitan im-
provements, namely, complete and universally uninterrupted com-
munication between all parts, and increase of architectural beauty.
But is it not too often forgotten, whilst the failure of that plan is
being regretted, that it may yet be carried into effect in all its
essential features ? As, for instance, two or three great lines of com-
munication from one end of London to the other ; streets broad in
proportion to their use, and the narrowest not too narrow for health
and convenience ; a quay along the whole bank of the river ; and
insulation of all public structures worthy of such distinction ; — these
are the chief features of the great architect's proposals. What is
to prevent us from realising all these now ? Considerable progress
has been made, or is making, already, with regard to the first two
points ; we hope yet to inhale the fresh breezes by the side of our
fine river ; and with regard to the better display of our public
edifices, we are willing to look upon the improvements made around
the Monument as the commencement of a good work, of which the
opening of the area around the same architect's greatest work, St.
Paul's, shall be the next and more important fruit."

LONDON, P

world to permit the banks of rivers, within towns,
to be encroached upon by building houses^ ware-
houses, cranes, or edifices for any other purposes
whatsoever, as these structures would be, under all
circumstances, more appropriately located around
docks and basins. The banks of rivers, within
towns, should always be left open for the public,
not only for the pleasure of water-scenery, but for
the sake of health and a promenade in an opea
current of air, which is generally more grateful
and refreshing, coming off the water, than on any
open spaces of land of equal extent. Besides,
there is also frequently so much difficulty in pro-
curing water to extinguish extensive conflagrations,
and so much time lost when the water-pipes fail,
and that element has to be fetched from so great a
distance, in consequence of the banks of the river
being closely hedged in by houses and other build-
ings, that common sense and the soundest wisdom
would dictate, that all buildings, of every nature,
standing on the banks of a river, especially in such
great towns as London and Hamburgh, should be
pulled down and cleared away, and the sides of
the river be formed into wide streets as the banks
of the Seine are at Paris ; and if such streets were
colonnaded with piazzas and round iron pillars,
after the fashion of the Quadrant in Regent-street,
the view of them would be truly splendid.

London is so crowded with houses, and so
densely populated, that it wants a River-parade
more than any other city that I am acquainted
with. If it be objected that London is peculiarly
a commercial and trading city, and that to remove
the wharfs and warehouses from the banks of the

In IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

river, within the city, would be to cause the de-
struction of a great mass of property, I beg to
qualify the objection by showing that a great deal
of this supposed loss is both imaginary and tem-
porary ; for, let it be recollected, that " Rome was
not built in a day," nor would all the warehouses
on the banks of the river be destroyed at one and
the same time : many of the buildings are very
old and ready to crumble into ruin, and to
keep them in continual repair costs a deal of
money, and to pull them down and rebuild them
would cost a deal more ; the plan, therefore, should
be, to prevent them from being repaired, and to
purchase the leases and buy up the ground and
ground- rents all along the river-side, as fast as the
Owners can provide themselves with new sites on
the river outside London : and if the owners cannot
find new situations outside the metropolis, whereon
to erect new wharfs and warehouses, they might
club together and hire the East India Docks,* a
place so capacious, that twice the number of ware-
houses might be erected there that now occupy
the river-banks within the city: or if the East
India Docks are too far off from London to be
quite convenient, a large basin might be dug in
the Borough of Southwark, and warehouses be
erected all round it, for the reception of such
articles as are now brought to the City-wharfs^
such as sugar, iron, stone, &c. &c. ; and this new
basin might be christened the City- Warehouse
Basin, (by way of distinction, although not in the
City,) and be within a quarter of a mile of the

* The East lodia Docks are now completely deserted.

I-ONDON, 7

south end of the South wark iron- bridge, which
leads to Queen-street.

. This basin or inlet might be dug and formed
near the Queen's (Bench) Prison, or somewhere in
that direction; the ground on that side of the
river being lower than on the city side, is well
adapted for a basin or inlet, with wharfs, jetties,
and piers to unload barges at. The inlet or basin
should not have dock-gates or sluice-gates to be
continually at the trouble of opening and shutting
for the ingress and egress of vessels, but it should
be dug as deep as the river, be open to the river,
and the water within to rise and fall with the tide
in the river, just as if it were a small harbour
or branch of the river, thus affording all the same
facilities for barges and lighters as the shoal
bottom and shelving shores of the river on the
city side.

The clearance of the buildings from the banks
of the river in Westminster and in the City being
effected, wide streets should be formed along the
river side from Westminster Bridge to the Tower,
and from the Tower to the Isle of Dogs ; consist-
ing of handsome lofty houses facing the water, at
the distance of one hundred and fifty feet, and a
river-parade paved and planted, along the water's
edge, fenced with a low balustraded-wall.

The river streets should be on the same level as
the present Temple gardens, and pass under arches
at the ends of the different bridges, (in the same
way as Thames-street passes under the arch of
London-bridge,) because the bridges are of so
preposterous a height, that people cannot enjoy the
sight of the water from them ; and if the stri^ets

8 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

were to be raised to that height, it would utterly
ruin the effect and the pleasures intended.

These new Thames streets or river- parades,
would be the grandest and most healthful altera-
tions and improvements that were ever effected in
London.

Secondly^ A Boulevard or circumferential street
round London is a great desideratum ; but the
plan of it is so connected with the parks, that we
will offer a few suggestions respecting the latter.

Victoria Park, at the north-east end of London,
is already planned, and it is understood that Fins-
bury Park and Lambeth Park are also decided
upon ; but there should be two or three more small
parks made besides the above three, if it were for
nothing else but to prevent the increase of the
metropolis, otherwise millions of houses will be
built, and so enlarge the suburbs, joining them to
the City, that London will be like a kingdom of
itself in a few hundred years more, so overgrown
and unwieldy will it become.

The other sites which should have parks to stop
the spreading pestilence of house-building and
house-crowding, are, 1st, one at Pentonville ; 2nd,
one at Hoxton ; 3rd, one between Stepney and
Bromley; 4th, one at Walworth; 5th, one at
Rotherhithe ; and 6th, one at Deptford ; making,
with the three of Finsbury, Lambeth, and Victoria
Park, a total of nine new parks, entirely encircling
the metropolis. This would be better than two or
three large parks, as these small parks would
divide the pleasure and recreation of such places
more equally and more beneficially to the wide-
spread population of the metropolis ; and the

LONDON. 9

scenery afforded by them would render the ap-
proaches to London from various quarters ex-
tremely beautiful.

There is another consideration regarding the
forming of many parks, which must not be lost
sight of, and that is, where are the numerous regi-
ments of London volunteers, amounting to two
hundred thousand men, to be drilled and manoeu-
vred, in any future war with France, if we permit
every open space, every field, every corner and
cranny of the metropolis to be built upon for miles
round.

To revert to the Boulevards : the North Boule-
vard should be a connecting avenue from one park
to another, consisting of a broad raised road
planted with several rows of trees on both sides,
and forming splendid malls or drives, encompass-
ing the northern portion of the metropolis ; begin-
ning at the Green Park, and from thence passing
Kensington Gardens to the north-west angle of Hyde
Park, thence to the Regent's Park, and from the
latter in a straight line to Victoria Park, embrac-
ing in its course Pentonville Park, Finsbury Park,
and Hoxton Park ; and from Victoria Park to
Stepney Park, and thence down to the new Quay-
street at the Isle of Dogs (or proposed new Fort-
Waterloo).

The South Boulevard in like manner forming
an avenue and mall, or drive, from South Lambeth
Park to Walworth Park, thence to Rotherhithe
Park, thence to Deptford Park, and thence to
Greenwich Park.

The next desideratum for London that we shall
advocate, is the building of a Palais Royal; and

10 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

unless this fairy-land residence of the enchantress
** Pleasure " be conceded, London will never be
anything else but a second-rate city.

Whatever may be the beauty of the shops under
the piazzas within the new Royal Exchange,
there will always be wanting the grass plots, the
rows of trees, the fountain, the marble statues,
and the glass saloon. The quadrangle of the
Royal Exchange can never have these beauties ;
it must always be a barren, paved, naked area ;
and its extent is also too small.

The most appropriate and most central situation
for a Palais Royal^ seems to be somewhere be-
tween Covent Garden Market, and Leicester
Square ; this being within a short distance of the
West end of the town, and not a great way from
the principal theatres. Several blocks of old dull
houses in dismal streets should be cleared away
in this locality, and a spacious open piece of
ground prepared, of exactly the same extent as
that occupied by the Palais Royal at Paris ; and
we would recommend that, whether this concern
be accomplished by a single capitalist or a corpo*
rate society, the whole exact plan and dimensions
of the Palais Royal at Paris be followed without
the least deviation in anything.

It may be useful to describe to those of our
readers who have not visited Paris, the principal
features of the Palais Royal. They must imagine
a large oblong field of green grass, surrounded by
two or three rows of small pretty trees, a fountain
in the centre shaded by trees, and at one end is a
refreshment room made entirely of glass windows,
which gives it the appearance of an aviary ox

LONDON. It

cage, so that the company within can see entirely
around the outside of the room. This field is
ornamented with a few statues in white marble of
the most exquisite beauty. The whole field is
surrounded by a continuous pile of building, two
or three stories high, which was formerly a palace,
the ground floor of which forms a deep and broad
piazza or colonnade or cloister, open to the field,
but fitted up in the back part with a row of shops
of the most elegant and costly articles, and of
unrivalled beauty of appearance. The building is
of stone, and at one end is a separate quadrangle.
The Palais Royal covers a space of ground about
one thousand feet long by four hundred feet wide,
and as may be supposed is a favourite rendezvous
of both natives and foreigners, more particularly
in wet or cold damp weather, when perambulating
the streets is not very agreeable. The arcades of
the different quarters of Paris are very beautiful
places, but they do not possess the variety of
scene nor length of promenade which the Palais
Royal does, as the sheltered walk and shops
extend entirely round the inside of the latter.

It might be supposed that such a place as the
Palais Royal would engross a great proportion of
customers from the street-shops, and seriously
injure the latter; but I have reason to believe that
such is not the case, as the occupiers of shops in
the streets of Paris, as in London, have all their
established connections, who are constant cus-
tomers, and who are necessarily the support of
the shops, and that the splendour of the Palais
Royal shops is in no way injurious to the others ;
for if there were no Palais Royal, there ivould not

12 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

be half so many strangers visiting Paris, and
therefore the existence of such a place of attrac-
tion is actually a benefit instead of an injury to
that city.

The next improvement we recommend in Lon-
don is that of a series of roofed streets and pas-
sages, commonly called arcades^ for foot-passengers ,
but we recommend them in London for a very dif-
ferent purpose to that for which they were in-
vented at Paris.

The one principal thoroughfare or great artery
for the circulation of human beings from the East
end of London to the West, and from West to East,
— namely, Leadenhall-street, Cornhill, Poultry,
Cheapside, St. Paul's, Ludgate Hill, Fleet-street,
and the Strand, is so crowded, confused, swarmed,
clogged, hindered, obstructed, and jostled, with
the millions of living beings that are continu-
ally passing to and fro along this one principal
thoroughfare, that if the population goes on in-
creasing as it has done the last ten years, it will
become a question of serious import, how these
crowds are to make their way along this only line
of transit, and whether another great artery,
another great thoroughfare, must not be created
through all the back streets which run in a direc-
tion parallel to Cheapside, the Strand, &c. ? But
the back streets, both to the south and north of
the line of Cheapside and the Strand, are all so
narrow, that it would cost as much, perhaps, to
widen them as it would to build an entire line of
new streets.

The plan, then, that we beg to suggest, is, to
leave the one principal thoroughfare for carriages,

LONDON. 13

and to construct a continuous series of arcades,
for foot-passengers only, to draw off a portion of
the yet unborn millions who will otherwise swarm
and block up the foot-pavements of Cheapside
and the Strand. The arcades to be built in the
following line, and to consist of twelve or more
separate structures : — No. 1 arcade, from the east
end of Piccadilly or the Quadrant to Leicester-
square* — No. 2 arcade, from Leicester-square to
Covent Garden Theatre. — No. 3 arcade, from
Covent Garden Theatre to Lincoln's Inn-square.
— No. 4 arcade, from Lincoln's Inn-square to
Farringdon Market. — No. 5 arcade, from Far-
ringdon-street to St. Paul's Churchyard. Pater-
noster-row to be pulled down, cleared away, and a
splendid fountain to occupy the site. — No. 6 ar-
cade, from the back of the new General Post-
office, St. Martin's-le-Grand, to Guildhall. — No. 7
arcade, from Guildhall to the Bank of England. —
No. 8 arcade, from the new Royal Exchange to
Bishopsgate-street Within. — No. 9 arcade, from
Bishopsgate-street Within to Houndsditch. The
foregoing arcades to be carried in a continuous
series, as far as is practicable and according to
the circumstances of the lanes and alleys, and
blocks of houses that may have to be cut through
for their erection. — No. 10, a branch arcade, to
lead down from the general line to the Temple
gardens (Fleet-street), the said gardens to be much
enlarged and lengthened along the side of the new
Quay-street, previously recommended. — No. 11, a
branch arcade, from the general line to Trafalgar-
square. — No. 12, a branch arcade, from the gene-
ral line to Somerset House (Strand). — No. 13, a

14 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

branch arcade, from the general line to the front
of the East India House (Leadenhall-street), —
No, 14, a branch arcade, from the general line,
near Houndsditch, to run parallel with Hounds-
ditch and the Minories, through those lanes known
by the names of St. James' place and street.
Duke-street, then crossing Aldgate-street, lead
down to Tower-hill, through Little George-street,
Vine-street, New- square, America -square, the
Crescent, and the Circus (Minories).

The foregoing arcades should be built on the
same plan as those beautiful places at Paris called
the Passage de Choiseul^ Passage du Saumon^ GaU
lerie de Vivienney Gallerie de la Bourse^ &c, ; and
if they were as brilliantly lighted at night as the
latter, would attract much company to London,
and increase the retail trade of the metropolis.

The London arcades, according to the foregoing
series, should terminate in Houndsditch with a
splendid quadrant (exactly similar to the quadrant
at Regent- street), which should sweep round into
Bishopsgate-street Without, or else into Shoreditch-
street, which contains one of the great entrances
into London, viz. the Eastern Counties Railway
station, as Whitechapel is the Eastern entrance for
coaches, &c.

The great Eastern entrance into London, and
the Southern entrance from the Dover and Ports-
mouth road, should both have a magnificent
triumphal arch erected on the spot where the
boulevard or mall intersects the said roads. By
building some capital houses, and embellishing
these inferior suburbs of London, the poorer classes
of the population would become improved, more

LONDON. 15

iDtermixed with the wealthy, better provided for,
and possibly raised in some degree from their
present degraded condition. The arcades of
Paris are of modern invention, and are distributed
over most of the quarters of the city. These
elegant passages, at first intended as substitutes
for filthy bye-lanes and alleys, are become an
agreeable lounge to the inhabitants, — an amuse-
ment to the curious ; the shortest cut to the man of
business, and a shelter and pleasant promenade in
bad weather. The largest and most beautiful are
No. 1, Passage du Saumon ; 2, Vero Dodat ; 3,
des Panoramas ; 4, Vivienne ; 5, Colbert ; 6,
Choiseul ; 7, Delorme ; 8, du Cendrier ; 9, de la
Bourse ; 10, de I'Ancient ou Grand Cerf ; also a
host of inferior arcades not necessary to enumer*
ate.

Our Burlington arcade and Lowther arcade,
are, to my way of thinking, very inferior passages
to the best in Paris ; but it is to be hoped that
London will, before long, boast of as splendid
arcades as those of the French metropolis. There
is neither a want of money, nor a want of public
spirit in the noble and illustrious inhabitants of
London. Every select Square in London ought
to be ornamented with a fountain and a few beau-
tiful marble statues ; and there should be Bra-
minee tanks or reservoirs dug and constructed on
the summits of Highgate-hill, Uampstead-hill,
and Homerton-hill, with waterworks attached to
each tank for the supply of the fountains ; and
each tank should consist of eighteen acres of
water, eighteen feet above the surface of the hill
summit, and eighteen feet below the surface of the

16 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

summit ; and there should be a stone wall dowii
to the bottom of the tank.

Of all the horrid abominations with which Lon-
don has been cursed, there is not one that can
come up to that disgusting place, West Smithfield
Market, for cruelty, filth, effluvia, pestilence, im-
piety, horrid language, danger, disgusting and
shuddering sights, and every obnoxious item that
can be imagined ; and this abomination is suffered
to continue year after year, from generation to gen-
eration, in the very heart of the most Christian
and most polished city in the world : — Shame upon
those with whom the fault lies ! If the market
charter is of so sacred a character that an Act
of Parliament cannot abrogate it, the authorities
ought at least to forbid the admission of horned
cattle.

Next to the abomination of Smithfield Market,
is that of suffering rows of butchers' shops in the
public streets of the metropolis, the most remark-
able of which is in Whitechapel, where you may see,
for the whole length of one side of the street, the
gory sight of hundreds of beings hanging with their
heads downwards, and their throats cut ; scores of
noble heads staring with their sightless glazed
eyes, and long rows of headless trunks, inundating
the foot pavement with rivers of blood, at which
I have seen the living animals stop to smell and
give an awful shudder, as if the crimson gore
possessed a tongue that revealed to their instinct
a murderous secret.

These are sights too repulsive to be exhibited
in public streets, let alone the question of accidents
and frequent danger to female passengers from

LONDON. 17

overdriven cattle, and an occasional mad ox. Such
places ought to be hidden up, in some enclosed
ground, or quadrangle of buildings ; and for this pur-
pose there should be twelve abattoirs^ or shambles
erected outside the metropolis at regular distances
from each other, and at about one or two miles from
any meat market in London, which meat markets
should be screened from public exhibition by
being enclosed all round, as well as erected in the
retired lanes and alleys of the various wards and
parishes.

Holborn and Whitechapel streets being both
very wide thoroughfares, the appearance of these
places might be wonderfully improved by building
a colonnaded piazza to the houses on both sides the
streets, so as to occupy the wide foot-pavement,
and having sky-lights overhead, afford a sheltered
path for foot-passengers ; and if the houses were
stuccoed in the eastern fashion, these two streets
would offer a novelty that none of the others could,
owing to their narrowness. We ought never to
overlook or neglect any capabilities which afford
a chance of diversifying and improving the metro-
polis.

There are many more improvements which are

' highly desirable, and we beg to suggest them for

the sake of giving employment to the labouring

poor as well as circulation to the money of the

capitalist.

A handsome wide colonnaded street should be
carried from Waterloo-bridge to Bloomsbury, in-
tersecting Holborn, and that thoroughfare should
be so continued on to Paddington.

A colonnaded streetshould be carried from Picket-

18 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

street (St. Clement's Church, Strand,) to Lincoln's
Inn Fields, and thence continued to Holborn.

Temple Bar should be thoroughly repaired and
ornamented, and a road should be made quite round
it by clearing away the nearest houses and forming
the opening into a circus. If it be necessary to
shut the gates on state occasions, and civic festi-
vities, the opening on each side the bar might
be closed, and filled up with a temporary wooden
structure or gallery, in the shape of a castle, with
seats within for two thousand spectators, the
receipts of which would cover the expenses of the
accommodations, and also much gratify the public.
The gates should be repaired and painted to imi-
tate brass.

Holywell-street and Wych-street should both
be pulled down, together with Lyon's Inn, Cle-
ment's Inn, and New Inn, and the whole of this
capacious space of ground should be surrounded
by private lodging-houses at. low rents, and the
ground in the middle be laid out into a retired
garden and quiet retreat from the noise of the
Strand ; and be called Royal Square, for the work-
ing classes.

A handsome broad colonnaded street should be
carried from Holborn-bridge (Farringdon-street)
straight to Islington, and thence to Pentonville
Park.

Shoreditch and Norton Falgate should be wi-
dened and colonnaded till it meets the proposed
Houndsditch Quadrant ; and here it may be as well
to remark, that, on whichever side the sun shines
the most oppressively in any street intended to
be colonnaded, it may, perhaps, be more benefi-

LONDON. 19

cial to confine the piazza to that side, and not
erect a piazza on the already shaded side.

Several one-sided small streets should be erected
in various parts of the City, at pretty regular
distances from each other, and continued in a
series from the East end of the town to the West
end, to consist wholly of stables and stalls for
gigs and carriages, which would enable people
who reside out of town to put up their horses, &c.,
close in the vicinity of their counting houses and
shops.

King-street and Queen-street, in the City, both
require widening all the way from the iron bridge
up to Guildhall. It has been recommended to
build a new front to Guildhall. We cannot ac-
quiesce in the recommendation ; it would be a pity
to destroy the present venerable looking gothic
front. It is not a new front that is wanted, but a
more extended front ; but the front cannot be ex-
tended, unless the buildings on each side (forming
salient wings) be pulled down ; and as the Hall
looks pinched up in a narrow nook, it would be a
grand improvement to make the front three times
its present width, in the same gothic style of build-
ing, and to widen King-street proportionally
thereto. Nothing can exceed the crowding of
spectators in King-street on Lord Mayor's day,
and the ruffianly behaviour of the mob to respect-
ably dressed people ; and it is entirely owing to
the narrowness of the street, which being as it
were the fountain-head of the civic spectacle, at-
tracts to this quarter a greater throng than any
other place during that memorable day.

It is a remarkable fact that the City within the

c 2

20 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

walls cannot boast of a single garden, and this
leads us to the consideration of the privation suf-
fered by the annual king of the city — the Lord
Mayor, who has a palace indeed, but not a single
rood of ground for the exercise of the right ho-
nourable legs. Every palace ought to have a
garden adjoining it, and the chief magistrate of
the City is as deserving of such an ornamental,
pleasant and healthful adjunct as any body in the
world. We should recommend that all that block
of houses in the rear of the Mansion House, en-
closed between Cannon Street, Walbrook, and
St. Swithin's Lane, be pulled down, and the whole
space be planted with shrubbery and grass, and
enclosed by a railing of musket-barrels on a low
wall, painted green.

It is to be hoped that the new Royal Exchange
will not be surmounted with a church steeple for
its clock and chimes as the old Exchange was.
A church steeple to a commercial building is per-
fectly ridiculous.

The Fleet Prison should be pulled down, and
Farringdon-street should have two rows of trees
(olives) planted along the edge of both foot-pave-
ments. Considering the little thoroughfare there
is in Farringdon-street, and its capacious width,
a few rows of trees would help to fill up the vacant
prospect ; this street also, from its low situation
and vicinity to a principal drain, would be the
most convenient in London for fixing a row of
circular boxes, eight feet high at intervals between
the trees, painted white, roofed, leaded inside, and
fitted with dish tiles in the same manner as the
urinal- pillars on the Boulevards at Paris,

LONDON. 21

The reader must excuse our entering upon a
subject, and we do it very reluctantly, that has a
tinge of indelicacy in it ; but if no one will dare
to broach it for fear of wounding the delicate feel-
ings of their readers, it is likely that this and
similar nuisances will be continued without abate-
ment.

A cruel custom obtains in every town in the
kingdom, of putting up written notices on the walls
of buildings, archways, gateways, and corners of
courts and alleys, containing the following threat.
Commit no nuisance^ or you will he prosecuted with
the utmost rigour of the law.

We say at once and without fear of false pro-
phesying, that this inhuman custom must be put
an end to, and there must be proper corners fur-
nished for the wants of men, or the consequences
at some time or other, when the population has
become doubled and trebled, will be dreadful.
The indelicacy of men watering against the walls
of houses in public thoroughfares is not only very
distressing to such of them as possess any feeling
of modesty, but is productive of pain and confu-
sion to all well-bred females who throng the streets
and cannot avoid such rencontres in every direc-
tion. Sometimes there may be seen a rank of men,
say, eight or ten gentlemen and labourers all in a
row, " pumping ship" against boards and palings
which surround buildings under repair, and fre-
quently in such conspicuous situations and in
public thoroughfares that really it is almost im-
possible for wives and daughters to go past the
place.

Unfortunately, in consequence of the increase

22 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

of population in every town the nuisance very
much increases, and so also do the warning-boards
and threatening notices : and I know from painful
experience that a stranger in a town of which he
is not well acquainted, may walk all about it
hunting for a secluded corner until his bladder is
ready to burst, and perhaps after all his fatigue
and suffering, is compelled to do the job under a
gateway that risks him the punishment of a pro-
secution, not having discovered the board *• com-
mit no nuisance, &c."

As the constitutions of men and their business
out of doors require for them means and appurte-
nances that are not requisite for the female part
of society, and as it is a crying evil and an evil
that daily gains ground in every town, i. e. that of
blocking up every corner with iron spikes or
boards of warnings, it will soon be an absolute
necessity and one that will force itself on the
notice of the public, from the danger that people
run who are obliged to withstand the calls of
nature be they ever so pressing (as we have heard
that some individuals have been known to have
their bladder burst,) some generous and liberal
measures must be taken by the towns' authorities,
to build and provide proper corners in the streets
and at certain distances from each other, and have
such places fitted with dish-tiles and roofed over ;
and the boards of notices and warnings painted
on gateways should be ordered to be abolished.

Every street should be provided with one pissaub
hhanah^ consisting of six partitions, each partition
enclosing a space like a watch box, three feet

* Hindoostanee for watering place.

LONDON. • 23

square, seven or eight feet high, boarded in front
all but a small space for entrance, dish-tiled, and
roofed over suflBciently to protect people from
being drenched with the droppings from the eves
in wet weather. Until this is done both nuisances
will increase with the growing population, until
the streets become perfectly intolerable and im-
passable for females.

All that row of houses between King-street and
Parliament-street, Westminster, should be pulled
down and abolished, and the whole space made
into one wide thoroughfare.

Pall Mall should be carried straight forward to
the Green Park by the removal of the intervening
buildings, or widening of the present narrow tho-
roughfare,

A triumphal marble arch should be erected at
Spring Gardens, to form a public entrance and
gateway into St. James's Park exactly facing the
Strand ; and there ought to be no public thorough-
fare through the Horse-Guards.

The south side of Cheapside and the Poultry
ought to be pulled down and rebuilt further back
by at least fifty feet. Considering that Cheapside
is one of the most crowded and thronged streets,
with carriages, in the metropolis, immediate steps
should be taken for the commencement and exe-
cution of this alteration, and the whole might be
effected within fifty years without injury to any
present living interest.

The north side of Cornhill and Leadenhall-
street should be thrown back twenty feet.

A circus (like the Oxford-street Regent Circus)
should be formed at the intersection of Cornhill

24 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

and Leadenhall-street with Gracechurch-street and
Bishopsgate- street, by pulling down the corner
houses ; and an obelisk with posts should be set
up in the centre, for the protection of passers,
and lamps for the convenience of wheeled vehicles
at night. There is scarcely a spot in London
where there are so many stoppages of carriages
or so many carriages passing across each other's
route, as here ; nor will the police suffer a gentle-
man's carriage to stop a moment even close to the
foot- pavement for a friend to speak to those within
the carriage, an act of overstretched tyranny, that
I have witnessed, and personally experienced.
Both Gracechurch-street and Bishopsgate-street
should be widened, or the confusion among the
waggons and carts will become worse than ever.

The south side of Aldgate and the east end of
Leadenhall-street, should be thrown back in a
line with the East India House. This improve-
ment, which becomes more necessary every year,
might be gradually effected without injury to any
living interest, by spreading it over a time equal
in years to one generation, say thirty years : but
the law to authorize it, should be passed immedi-
ately, and thus serve as a preparatory measure for
the inhabitants.

Great Tower-street and Little Eastcheap should
be widened throughout and carried in a straight
line to the junction of Gracechurch-street with
King William-street. Nothing is more obvious to
a stranger than the utility of this improvement,
for the traffic from London-bridge to Tower Hill
is immense, and there are few streets that can
boast of greater confusion among waggons and

LONDON. 25

carts, and locked wheels, than Great Tower-
street.

Very extensive improvements are visibly wanted
all round the Tower of London ; and it is ever to
be regretted that the localities of that ancient
castle should have been suffered to be encroached
upon by the digging of the St. Catherine Docks
and the building of those warehouses. Those
overgrown dull-looking ugly buildings are not only
dangerous to the City in case of their catching fire
(which they probably will some day or other,) but
they have completely spoiled the esplanade or what
ought to be the esplanade of that revered old
Tower : and we should be very glad to see those
warehouses removed and the Catherine Docks
filled up and planted with shrubbery. When the
old streets of St. Catherine's were demolished for
the purpose of making this basin, the ground
should have been left open and appropriated to
ornamental pleasure-grounds : the Docks and
warehouses are too near the city, and the city may
awfully find it out some of these days.

In the first place, the neighbourhood of the new
Mint is greatly in want of improvement and beau-
tifying : the whole of Upper East Smithfield and
Ratcliff Highway should be pulled down, and an
entire new street, three times its present width,
should be carried all the way to Poplar-street and
East India Docks ; thus affording plenty of room
for the increasing traffic to and from all the docks,
basins, streets, quays, wharfs, stairs, and turns of
the river. The houses should be roomy and the
rooms capacious and airy, and well adapted for
lodging-houses for sea-faring people, masters and

26 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

mates of small vessels, &c. ; they should also have
back-courts where they might dry their linen.

A new wide street should then be built from the
East India Docks to the proposed Stepney Park.

All those dirty, narrow, and uncomfortable
streets and blocks of houses between the Mint
and the end of the Minories should be pulled
down and cleared away, and a handsome half-
crescent should be carried in a sweep from the
Royal Mint to the south-east end of the Minories ;
a street at right angles with the Mint and crescent
should separate these two piles of buildings and
communicate with Rosemary-lane : the charity
school at the corner of the Mint should occupy
the first house in the crescent next the Mint, and
it should be an ornamented building.

All those rows of houses, narrow streets and
courts to the south and south-west of the end of
the Minories on Tower-hill should be pulled down
and cleared away, and a half crescent should be
carried from the south-west end of the Minories
to the Trinity House, forming with the other half
crescent one magnificent sweep of good commo-
dious houses, pretty lofty, and possessing noble
capacious rooms, the lower stories consisting of
such shops as are most generally required for such
a maritime neighbourhood ; one or two good
hotels and two or three good public houses being
included in part of the range. The Trinity House
should be turned round and made to face the
Tower, the same as the Mint does, and it should
have a new front, similar to the latter building,
and thus both would be uniform and ornamental
wings to the whole crescent. The shrubbery of

LONDON. 27

Trinity House-square should then be extended all
over Little Tower-hill, with two or three carriage-
ways through it like a small park. A kind of
sloping terrace-crescent might also be carried from
Savage Gardens to the east end of Great Tower-
street, and thus finish the whole circuit of the
Tower esplanade. With these improvements and
a new grand street to London-bridge in place of
Little Eastcheap and Great Tower-street, the
environs of the Tower of London would be no
unenviable place of residents for the water-side and
sea-faring inhabitants of London.

THE TOWER.

In the next place, a complete remodelling of
that ancient castle the Tower of London should be
effected, and as it is itself the greatest curiosity in
the metropolis, it should be made so as to give it
the perfect semblance of a castle a thousand years
ago. The ramparts should have the besom of
regeneration pretty liberally applied to them, and
every brick building and every modern building
with which they are encumbered and defaced
should be swept away ; in fact, every brick build-
ing in the Tower should be entirely removed : the
modern-looking brick ramparts should be cased
outside with rustic white stone made to look as
venerable with age as the White Tower, and they
should be surmounted with battlemented or cas-
tellated parapets of white stone ; with here and
there a small square overhanging turret, project-
ing out about two feet over the moat. The bas-
tions should be rounded and circular, and also
battlemented for very small brass cannon, and have

28 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

sham loopholes as if for matchlocks and arrows.
Within the ramparts a long, low, white stone castle
with round towers, should be seen just to rise
about six feet above the ramparts, battlemented,
sham loopholed, and flat roofed : this building
would be but little raised above the ground within
the Tower and only have a ground floor, and wauld
therefore serve for the new small armoury, which
ought not to be a building with an upper story, lest
a second great fire should occur ; and there should
be no timber or wood used in the building. Such
a thing as a church-steeple should not be seen in
this ancient castle, but if there must be a place of
worship, it should be so low as not to be seen
above the new armoury, and a steeple should be
dispensed with. All the brick buildings within
the Tower being cleared away, a range of build-
ings in the form of an inner castle, two stories highy
should be erected with white stone and battle-
mented, terraced and loopholed, which would
serve for lodgings for soldiers or yeomen, in the
upper story ; and shops and workshops of artificers
on the ground floor, or dwellings for people who
are permanently fixed in the Tower. This inner
castle would be seen from outside the Tower
clearly over the new low armoury; and the old
White Tower would be seen overtopping the new
inner castle, thus displaying at one coup (Toeil the
appearance of works within works, or castle within
castle, as one sometimes sees in pictures of an-
cient castles, than which, nothing can look more
grand or romantic. If the old White Tower is in
want of any repairs it should be repaired exactly
as it is and conformably to its age.

LONDON. 29

The Tower gateways and gates, portcullises,
and drawbridges, watch-towers, turrets, and every-
thing else that can give it the appearance of an
ancient castle should be restored, and in such a
way as to be seen from the outside ; the beams and
chains of the drawbridges being made purposely
visible. Those miserable wooden palings, rail-
ings, and gates outside the Tower gateways are a
great disfigurement and disgrace to the castle, and
should be removed and abolished, together with
the adjoining brick houses and guard-house ; and
the moat or wet ditch should be the only outer de-
fence. It is much to be regretted that the moat
is to be filled up, as it was not only a capital place
for a swimming bath, on account of its capacious
extent, but it was safe and perfectly retired from
public view, unless, indeed, females went to the
margin or parapet expressly for the purpose of
viewing the bathers. There is scarcely another
place in the metropolis so well calculated in every
respect for a swimming tank as the Tower-ditch.
Some people make a foolish noise about indecent
exposure of bathers ; but it is all rank prudery
and nonsense. The river-face of the Tower should
also be cleared of the brick buildings, and the
river-rampart should be cased with white stone,
and battlemented, and turretted ; and the Tower
wharf should be an open free thoroughfare to the
public, as it was formerly, and the gates should be
removed and abolished.

No cannon larger than a three-pounder should
be in the bastions, and these should be brass, and
only kept there for firing salutes on rejoicings.

The ramparts and walls should be open and free

30 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

to the public, who should enjoy the liberty of
promenading entirely round the Tower thereon.
Sentinels in ancient dress or armour, armed with
the ancient spear, should guard the ramparts.

The low parts of the ground inside the Tower
should be raised with earth, so as to make the
whole interior on one level, and that a higher level ;
and thus do away with the disagreeable up and
down sloping ground, which is particularly slippery
and dangerous, in frosty weather, and annoying at
all times. By these alterations a larger open
space would be gained within the Tower, for the
parade or exercise of troops : there would also be
more available room for grass plots and shrub-
beries in other parts of the interior.

The fittings-up of all the castellated buildings of
the Tower should be in keeping with their out-
ward gothic architecture ; and being a place en-
tirely appropriated for ancient and warlike show,
it would be a very popular and favourite resort of
the citizens of London and visitors, instead of
being an object of jealousy, and a fort that seemed
held only to overawe a London populace.

But if we cannot trust to the loyalty of the
people for the safety of the Tower, or the sacred
guardianship of the military stores usually kept
there, without bolting and barring them out like-
foreign enemies, and other unnecessary jealous
precautions, it would be far better to at once re-
move the ammunition, arms, and military stores
from the Tower to Woolwich, and build a new fort
somewhere else, expressly for their reception and
safe keep, and the sooner the better; but at all
events let the most free ingress and egress to the

LONDON. 31

Tower at all times exist, and let the fortress be
completely renovated, and preserved as an ancient
relic.

One of the most abhorred uses of the Tower is
that of making it a prison for state-prisoners,
whilst on the other hand it is a complete mockery
and ridicule in modern times for the House of
Commons to order people into confinement in
the Tower. Now, there should not be suffered
another state-prisoner to be confined there any
more ; the custom ought to be done away : and as
there are plenty of prisons, equally as convenient,
and as well fitted up and furnished as the Tower,
let one be especially appointed for state-prisoners,
and let some improvements be added to it for such
a purpose, such as a bath, a garden, a tennis-
court for exercise, &c. &c. ; so that an innocent
man may not have his health injured by confine-
ment, before he has been found guilty.

One word more about the Tower, in conclusion :
As extensive improvements and alterations have
been proposed and announced in the newspapers
as about to take place in the Tower, in conse-
quence of the late dreadful conflagration, and one
of those alterations is the filling up of the wet
ditch, which in our humble opinion is a grievous
and injurious alteration, as far as it regards the
appearance of the Tower ; we would propose and
recommend an alteration of the ground plan of the
outline of the Tower, and not fill up the ditch.
The following is the plan we think would add greatly
to the romantic appearance and venerable style of
the Tower fortifications, without any great expense,
and without departing from the rules of ancient

32 LONDON.

castle architecture, viz. : — In place of only three
front circular bastions, let the ramparts on the
land side be extended and lengthened in a straight
line, (parallel with the river) sufficiently long to
admit of five round bastions, instead of only three,
(and as there are already three round bastions,
this plan would require the erection of one round
bastion, and a piece of curtain, at each end, and
exactly in a line with what would then be the three
middle round bastions), and as this might be ac-
complished in the site of the present ditch, it
would only lessen the width of the ditch a little,
but it would add materially to the space in the
interior of the Tower, which must be acknow-
ledged to be a great acquisition, and yet no loss to
the ditch, as the latter is wider than it need be,
considering that it is no longer used as a defence.
Yet a narrow ditch is better than no ditch ; the
Tower would lose half its romantic appearance
without a wet ditch and drawbridge.

An alteration of the Tower according to the fore-
going plan, would enlarge the interior, and give
the exterior the appearance of an ancient castle,
having ^176 round bastions exactly in one line, in its
front face, (the centre bastion which now projects,
should be thrown back in a line with the other
bastions), which might all be seen at once from
Tower-Hill, and would resemble many very
ancient forts that I have seen in India, the
romantic appearance of which always filled me
with indescribable feelings of delight, veneration
and admiration ; indeed, no one who has not seen
such places can imagine or form any idea of the
romantic sensations they give rise to, and how

LONDON. 33

they carry the mind back to ages and scenes of an
ancient world. The Tower of London is capable
of all these alterations and improvements, and is
well worthy of any expense, as the most revered
relic of the metropolis.

THE ISLE OF DOGS.

I think no one can look upon this extraordinary
bend in the river Thames and in the land
(the Isle of Dogs), without being struck with its
peculiar situation relative to the metropolis. Its
shape and extent, and its position are con-
comitant qualities which together so admirably
fits it for a military dep6t for stores, a garrison
for troops, or an impregnable fortress, that it is
wonderful it should have been neglected and over-
looked by the Government for so great a length
of time.

Situated as it is, to the eastward of the metro-
polis, instead of to the westward, it seems placed
so by nature to form a " lock and key" to London
against any sudden incursion from a foreign foe
by a fleet of steamers, loaded with troops, how-
ever numerous ; for with batteries all round the
Isle of Dogs, and good ramparts, it is certain an
enemy's fleet could pass no further ; and with tiers
of sixty-eight pounders, on a level with the water, the
narrowness of the river here would en sure the speedy
destruction of a thousand steamers at once.

Its shape and extent are admirably contrived
by nature for the erection of a roomy fortress or
depot for a large body of troops. It covers a
space of nearly a square mile in extent, which
would not only admit of ample ramparts and

D

34 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

bastions but also of fosse within fosse, and line
within line of ravelins, half-moons, detached bas-
tions, &c., &c., and in short, of every work that will
add strength to, or can be named in fortification ;
and such works could be marked out and added
from time to time to make the expense fall lighter
on the Government. Within the centre of the for-
tress there might be one or two large square grass
or gravelled fields, for the exercise and health of a
numerous garrison ; and these squares might be
ornamented all round with walks or malls, and
rows of trees ; and handsome airy barracks two
stories high, with little gardens ; besides bomb-
proof magazines, and storehouses only one story
high. Government is in the habit of keeping
most of the troops at the West end of the town^
but surely the greater number ought to be sta-
tioned at the East end of London, for that is the
quarter which would be first assailed by a Russian-
French fleet and army, ha the event of any future
war ; and the mode of carrying on a war, and of
attack and defence may yet be so greatly altered
by new discoveries in connection with steam power
and steam fleets, that sudden and unexpected
inroads from an enterprising and cunning enemy
may easily be conceived and executed. In all
future wars, London will be aimed at, on account
of its splendour, its riches, and its want of de-
fences, the same as Paris has hitherto been ; and it
would not be unwise or improvident to prepare in
peace time for all contingencies of a future war.

The position of the Isle of Dogs is such, that it
must be attacked by water, for it could scarcely
be attacked from the land-side on account of the

LONDON. 35

West India Docks which nearly cover it ; but if
the fortress were attacked from that side, the ene-
my's army, though ever so numerous, might be
harassed by one hundred thousand London volun-
teers, until more regular troops could be collected
from the country garrisons. If assailed from the
river, the enemy must erect his batteries on the
opposite shore, say in Rotherhithe, Deptford,
Greenwich, &c. (for no floating battery could live
a moment above water against the heavy projec-
tiles from the fort), and supposing the height of
the ground at Greenwich or Deptford afforded the
enemy some little advantage, yet they could never
advance their batteries a single inch nearer, and
therefore they would find it a tedious job to breach
the works, nor would they gain any thing by bom-
barding the place with shells further than the loss
of their time and ammunition, &c., for it could not
be besieged as the citadel of Antwerp was : and,
upon the whole, I think a good strong regular
fortification, occupying the whole plain of the Isle
of Dogs, would not only be perfectly impregnable,
but the very safe-guard and life and soul of the
metropolis.

At times, when the regular troops were not in
sufficient numbers to guard the Fort in time of
war, one or more regiments of London Volunteers
might do duty there for alternate fortnights, which
would be of great use to the volunteers themselves,
in making them acquainted with a part of their
military duty. Some disaffected people might
excite opposition to the fortifying of the Isle of
Dogs, by objecting that the government were do-
ing it in order to overawe the populace of London

d2

36 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

with a large force of regular troops ; but although
a large force might usefully be collected there
occasionally, and even be called upon in time of
mob tumult, yet the distance from the City is
sufficiently far, not to give much weight to the
objection : and the more such an objection was
urged, the more determined ought Government to
be to take the hint and fortify the Isle.

I know not in whom the property of the Isle of
Dogs is vested, but at any rate it is worth very
little at present, being so low that it is seven feet
below high water mark, and consequently can only
afford a little grazing pasture for cattle. If it be
private property, the Government should imme-
diately purchase it, and adopt the following plan
for raising its surface seven feet above the highest
tide that has ever been known; viz. — A harbour is
much wanted for the sole reception of colliers,
which come to London by thousands, now that
coal is so much wanted for steam, and it is pro-
posed to dig a creek or a new basin for colliers
alone, somewhere to the eastward of the East
India Docks ; but it would be a mile or two nearer
London, and more convenient, to dig a basin a
little to the north of the West India Docks (in
Poplar), and make the basin about four times as
large again as the latter docks, and cart all the
excavated earth into the Isle of Dogs, raising and
levelling it all over, within the lines (which should
be previously staked out) of the proposed ram-
parts : for as the basin must be made somewhere,
it might as well be made at Poplar, and by so
doing, add an additional defence to the proposed
fort, and an additional obstacle against an enemy;

LONDON. 87

also as the earth must be carted somewhere, it
may as well be carted to the Isle, and thus '' kill
two birds with one stone," as the old saying has it.
The ramparts would be formed with the earth ex-
cavated out of the intended fosses, and the latter
might be made the widest and deepest of any fort-
ditches in Europe, and so enable the ramparts to
be made the broadest and highest of any in Europe,
upon which a charming promenade would exist for
the ladies of the garrison and the friends generally
of the troops.

There is a small indentation in the shore of the
river between the East India and West India
Docks, called " Old Dock ;" this place should be
made the entrance to the Collier's Basin, and, in
fact, the colliers might be towed out into the river
by the same cut.

With respect to the laying out of the Fort, the
works should all be staked out first, and should
cover the whole Isle, merely leaving a sufficient
breadth all round the margin next the river to be
formed into a glacis : and then the shell merely of
the very outer works and line of ramparts should
be built of brick, thus as it were, forming the
skeleton of the fortress, which could be done at a
moderate expense. The enclosure thus meagrely
accomplished, would at once permit of the erec-
tion of one range of barracks and the reception of
a small corps of military ; and the filling in of the
works with earth, the erection of more works and
buildings, and the finishing and beautifying of the
Fort would naturally be an affair of many years,
but by a persevering continuance of labour, and
the cost spread over a number of years, the place

38 IMPROVEMENT Of TOWNS.

would at last come out of the hands of the work-
men like a finished jewel from a goldsmith's shop,
and might be the strength of London and the
pride of England.

Of course the ramparts should be cased with
bricks or stone inside, and with earth outside, like
the citadel of Hull ; but if the foundation is not
good on the Isle of Dogs, or is so soft as to risk
the sinking of the masonry, I do not know a
better plan than to dig several thousand wells, in
rows, close together, at the bottom of the excava-
tions for the ramparts, and fill them all up with
brickbats. They ought to be thirty or forty feet
deep, and about three feet in diameter ; and if the
earth or sand falls in during the digging, they
should be hooped with thick earthenware hoops,
each hoop about two and a half inches thick, and
five inches deep, laid one upon another, and
sinking down gradually as the well-digger de-
scends : this method makes a capital firm founda--
tion in a loose sandy soil. These wells could be
either pumped dry where the water trickled in
during the digging, or they might be scooped
down within small diving-bells. If the foundation
be in blue clay or gravel, there would be no
necessity for sinking wells of brickbats.

It might be feared that the Isle of Dogs, lying
so low, would prove unhealthy to the troops ; and
so it might, were troops stationed there in its
present state of nature ; but with all the improve-
ments of good buildings, good drainage, raised
surface, and the smoke of inhabited barracks, the
climate and salubrity of the place would be so
completely metamorphosed, that there could be no

LONDON. 39

longer any doubt or apprehension of an unhealthy
or unwholesome atmosphere.

The old Tower of London is in no way adapted
either for self-defence or the defence of the city-
waters, and is only worthy of being repaired and
preserved, on account of its antiquity and venera-
ble appearance, and a place to look at, like any
other haunted castle ; and it should no longer be
used as a state-prison. The last time that the
dilapidations of the Tower-ramparts were repaired,
the repairs were made with brick, which com-
pletely spoiled their appearance, as they were
anciently cased with white stone.

Should a large strong fort be ever built on the
Isle of Dogs, it might serve at some distant future
time as a point d'appui^ or starting-post, for a line
of ramparts, to encircle the metropolis, whenever
such a defence may be called for and rendered
necessary : and it might be called Fort Waterloo,

It is a remarkable fact, that there is not a
regular perfect fortification in all the British do-
minions, except Fort William at Calcutta, and
Fort St. George at Madras ; for such works as
Hull Citadel, Portsmouth, Tilbury Fort, and
others of like plan and size, do not deserve the
name of forts ; and as for Tilbury Fort, the Rus-
sians would walk into it pell-mell over the dead
bodies of their comrades. There is not perhaps in
all the world a river and a city as the Thames and
London are, so completely exposed, so sadly ne-
glected, and so culpably undefended : not a single
battery or a single gun is planted anywhere, all
the way from Tilbury Fort to London, except that
paltry and absurd one at . God grant Eng-

40 IMPROVEMENT OP TOWNS.

land may never see a fleet of united foreign ene-
mies in the Thames ! for, with good pilots, there
is nothing to prevent them from following in each
other's wake, a trip up to London in one tide.

There was once a project on foot to shorten the
navigation of the river, by cutting a broad strait
or channel though the Isle of Dogs ! Woe be to
him, whoever does it ! — ^for Nature formed the Isle
to prevent the tide from rushing up to London too
violently. The present canal across the Isle does
no harm.

There have been various plans at different times,
for forming wet docks and basins on the Isle of
Dogs, and, perhaps it is providential that none
hitherto have been accomplished. The first was
a proposal made by the City, to form a dock of
102 acres in the Isle ; the next was a plan by Mr.
Wyatt, to form three docks in the Isle : another
was by Mr. Spence, to form docks in the Isle,
and to classify ships ; another plan was by Mr.
Walker, to cut a canal from the South side of the
Isle to some docks in Wapping. Another plan
was by Mr. Reaveley, to dig a new channel for the
river through the Isle of Dogs. At last, a Bill
passed Parliament, in 1835, for constructing
wet docks in the Isle ; but the project was aban-
doned : and God grant that it always may ! for
there is no calculating on the injury the river
might receive if the Isle of Dogs were turned into
a sheet of water. Perhaps some unexampled high
spring tide, with other concomitant circumstances,
might cause the Thames to break through the
earth and masonry to the basin on one side,
and break out again at the opposite side, thus

LONDON. 41

making a breach completely through the Isle, and
washing all the ruins and debris into the river,
choaking up the bed thereof at Limehouse Reach :
now it would be impossible for an accident of this
nature to happen if the Isle were filled up with a
strong fort, and the ground within raised. I re-
peat, God grant that the Isle of Dogs may never
be scooped out into basins of water !

CLASSIFICATION OF STREETS,

The principle I wish to establish for the classi-
fication of streets, is that of their width, not the
size or style of the houses ; for, all the houses of
a street can seldom be of the same size ; there will
almost always be small ones intermixed with the
large, in every street, on account of the varied
means of the owners, some being wealthy, and
some not wealthy. If a whole street belonged to
one individual, and he a wealthy one, all the
houses could be of one size and one style, if he
chose to build them so ; but this is a case that
occurs so seldom, that it is best to fix the classifi-
cation of streets by their width.

The utility of classifying streets, consists in
this, that the width of each class may be fixed and
made permanent by Act of Parliament, so that all
builders may know for the future, that it is com-
pulsory to build a street of a certain convenient
width, and that it is the law of the land, from which
they may not deviate through caprice, nor no
longer spoil towns, nor run up little paltry narrow
streets that induce filth, injurie health, and render
the thoroughfare difficult and awkward to the

42 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

traffic of three carriages abreast, or passing each
other at the same moment.

The principle of classifying streets being once
established, and according to the following rules,
they should be rigidly enforced and complied
with.

First-class streets, such as Regent-street, in
London, or the Boulevard de Montmartre, in Paris,
should never be less than one hundred and fifty
feet in width, including a foot-pavement on each
side, of from twelve to eighteen feet wide each.

Second-class streets, such as Cheapside and
the Strand, in London, should not be of a less
width than one hundred feet wide, including a foot-
pavement on each side, from nine to twelve feet
wide each.

Third-class streets should not be of a less width
than will permit four carriages abreast, or passing
each other at the same moment between the two
side foot-pavements, each of which should not be
less than eight feet wide.

Fourth-class streets should not be of a less width
than will permit three carriages or carts abreast,
or passing each other between the two side foot-
pavements, which should not be less than five feet
wide each.

No thoroughfare, narrower than the last, should
be deemed a street, nor be permitted to enjoy the
privilege of general traffic for any wheeled vehicles
larger than a wheelbarrow ; and such thorough-
fares should be shut up at each end by a row of
granite or iron posts, and be called " passages."
If this rule were strictly enforced in all the towns
of the kingdom, and builders knew it to be the law

LONDON. 43

of the land, they would take good care not to
build any more abominably inconvenient narrow
streets.

All old streets not agreeing with one or other of
the foregoing classes, should be either turned into
one-sided streets, as a temporary measure till they
could be pulled down and rebuilt according to some
one class ; or they should be turned into passages
or covered arcades, when and where the latter im-
provement might be desirable and practicable.

First-class streets might have two rows of dwarf
elm-trees planted on each side, at the outer edge
of the foot-pavement.

The poor streets should be built upon a more
liberal, more comfortable, and more cleanable
plan : and if fires and conflagrations are to be
rendered less awful, and less destructive, narrow
streets must be widened, even if at the expense of
demolishing a whole side of a street, and making
them one-sided streets^

There are some streets so narrow as only to be
worthy of the denomination of " alleys," and they
should be shut up with posts, and flagged over the
whole length and breadth, with a covered iron
gutter along the middle.

A penalty of 5001. should be levied on any per-
son who builds or attempts to build a street of a
less width than will admit three carts abreast, ex-
clusive of ten feet more for two foot-pavements.

RAILWAYS IN THE CITY.

The greatest blunder that the citizens of Lon-
don have committed for many years, is the having
permitted the Blackwall Railway to be brought

44 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

into the City: — the Minories, which was a good
handsome street before, is now utterly spoiled for
ever ; and the quick returning periodical noise of
the trains, on a level with bedroom floors, across
quiet lanes and back streets, will ever be felt as a
heavy curse, and to sick people an insupportable
nuisance. How many more railways and stations
are to be brought into London we know not, but
this we know, and certain people will feel it,
namely, that wherever a railway crosses over a
street, it injures the property of the landlord,
spoils the appearance of the street, disturbs the
quiet of the inhabitants, blocks up the current
of air and injures their health, and takes from a
number of poor coachmen and cabmen their daily
livelihood. It would be well to offer a stout re-
sistance to any more attempts to bring railways
or stations into London, The injury to the ap-
pearance of that fine street the Minories is deeply
to be regretted, and the more we contemplate it, the
more satisfied we feel in our opinion, of the very
great disfigurement inflicted on that street.

THE EGYPTIAN OBELISK.

His Highness, the Pacha of Egypt, some years
ago, presented to France and England an obelisk
a-piece, and our scientific neighbours across the
water immediately set to work to invent machines
for the removal of the obelisk, as well as a pro-
perly contrived ship for its conveyance to France,
in which they fortunately succeeded without da-
mage or accident, and it now stands the greatest
ornament in Paris, a monument as honourable to
the generous Pacha as it is to the French for their

LONDON. 45

ingenuity and patriotism in conveying it home.
But how stands the case with the obelisk given to
the English ? Why, there it stands in Egypt still,
a disgraceful memorial of those finical and sickly
minds who exclaim against the removal from
Egypt of its ancient ruins ; a disgraceful memo-
rial of English ingratitude in treating with con-
tempt a gift so beautiful and valuable ; a disgrace-
ful memorial of inferiority in intellect in not being
able to invent a scheme for its removal ; and a
memorial of our pauperism in not being able to
afford a few thousand pounds, with a properly
built ship, for its safe removal to London. The
French got their obelisk safe home as soon as
they could, but I very much doubt whether we
have not lost ours for ever, for perhaps the next
sovereign of Egypt may refuse to surrender it.

THE LONDON PYRAMID.

Some years ago a proposal was started, to erect
a pyramid in or near London for a sepulchre for
the dead ; and a very dangerous place it would
have been when it contained many hundred dead
bodies, in such a wet climate as ours : but still, a
pyramid exactly like one in Egypt would be a
grand ornament to the metropolis, and it might be
specially dedicated to the service of geological
science. A pyramid, three hundred feet high and
three hundred feet square at the base, should be
built with blocks of stone from every rock in the
world, each block three feet square, and each
layer of stones composed of rocks of nearly the
same colour, with the apex finished with white
marble, and surrounded by a railing for the pro-

46 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

tection of landscape painters. All the shades of
grey, black, and red granite should form the lower
layers ; next above them the basalts, sienites, red
and green porphyry, serpentine, &c., and then all
the coloured marbles : the interior, grottoes of
stalactites.

THE GREEN PARK.

A great and striking improvement is proposed to
be made in the appearance of Piccadilly, conse-
quent upon the removal of the ranger's house in
the Green Park. The alteration is to consist of a
noble terrace and public walk, from the gate into
the palace gardens at Hyde Park Corner, to the
junction of the houses at the lower end of the basin.
The form of the ground on this line is particularly
favourable to picturesque elffect, in laying out and
planting, and to beauty of design in the parterre.
Fountains and statues, too, are likely to be intro-
duced to add to the grandeur of the plan, give en-
couragement to the arts, and to combine the whole
with the palatial residence of the sovereign, by
carrying it, perhaps, further on hereafter along the
line opposite to Grosvenor-place.

It is to be hoped that there will be also many
stone seats, and one or two sheltered watering
corners, so constructed as to prevent any immoral
conduct, be free from offence to decency, and
aflford convenience to large congresses of respect-
able pleasure-seekers, the same as is the case in
the palace grounds at Paris.

We still want a Bois-de- Boulogne or Wood, and
an Avenue de Neuilly or Equestrianade ; for the

LONDON. 47

Drive in Hyde Park cannot bear comparison with
the latter.

With respect to the first, a beautiful wood might
be planted at Bayswater, where the surface of the
ground is undulating, and extend round in a sweep
to Hampstead Hill, and a drive might be made
through it from Kensington Palace gardens.

With respect to the second, an Avenue de
Neuilly might be formed and planted, from Gros-
venor-place (near the Royal Mews), through all
the little blocks of houses down to the river
Thames at the proposed new bridge, nearly op-
posite Lambeth palace ; and if a river -terrace
were formed from the said new bridge to the new
houses of Parliament, there could not be found, in
all London, a more eligible spot or line for an
Avenue de Neuillv. The reader will ask what is
an Avenue de Neuilly ? It is a perfectly straight
road, of magnificent width, with three or four rows
of trees on each side its whole length (and leads
from Paris to Neuilly). This avenue would cut
through a place called the Artillery Ground, and
the Westminster Gas Works, but no other build-
ings of any consequence. A few blocks of houses
would have to come down.

Thus a communication would be formed be-
tween the residences of the sovereign and the
primate of all England, also a delightful road from
St. James's Park to the proposed Lambeth Park,
&c., making the avenue in every respect useful as
well as pleasurable.

The proposed Lambeth-bridge should consist of
twelve sharp-pointed gothic arches, with a small
gothic spire over each arch, and the whole of its

48 IMPROVEMENt OF TOWNS.

architecture should be in gothic keeping with the
venerable residence of the head minister of the
church. The little spires should be hollow, roofed,
and have seats within.

It is reported that the Coventry family have re-
fused to surrender the ground in the Green Park,
opposite Coventry House, they having it on lease
for sixty years. Does not this show the thought-
lessness of granting leases of public property,
without some discretionary clause, to the effect
that such lease should cease when required by
the public, on paying a reasonable compensation
for the surrender? It is to be hoped that some
exchange will be made with that noble family for
the ground in question without injury to them.

THE LAW COURTS.

Although the following paragraph has already
appeared in print, it is inserted here in order to
draw fresh attention to its judicious suggestions : —
*' A correspondent, who wisely opposes the oblite-
ration of Lincoln's-inn -fields, a space which should
be secured and opened for public recreation,
says, let the whole neighbourhood of Shire-lane
(including all the alleys and passages between
Lincoln's-inn and Fleet-street on the north and
south, and Chancery-lane and Clement's Inn on
the east and west) be cleared away, an ample
space would then be afforded * for the erection of
a pile of building which would be an ornament to
the metropolis. Temple Bar might be converted
into a medium of communication between the
Temple and the proposed new courts of law, by

* A capital site for a splendid Palais Royal.

LONDON. 49

means of the chamber over the central arch, and
approaches to be constructed on either side. The
increased value of the property would very soon
repay much of the expense incurred ; and the con-
venience which would result, both to the profes-
sion and to the public generally, from thus con-
structing one compact legal colony would be in-
calculable,"

We entirely agree with the writer in deprecating
the obliteration of Lincoln's-inn-fields, and we say,
God forbid that that or any other square should be
built over ! There are not half enough open places
or squares in the metropolis for so large and
crowded a city, and if this open space be suiSered
to be obliterated, it will be a bad precedent, and we
should soon see other squares destroyed in the
same insane manner. Streets may be compared
to valleys and defiles between different kinds of
hills, but open squares are like oases of atmosphe-
ric air, in the midst of a country poisoned with
smoke. We enter our earnest protest against any
plan for blocking up the square called Lincoln's-
inn-fields. We cannot approve of the writer's
suggestion for turning Temple-bar into a bridge
over the street for the mere purpose of saving the
gentlemen of the law from dirtying their shoes ; as
we have elsewhere recommended a carriage way
to be made on each side of the bar, by the widen-
ing of the street and removal of the houses adjoin-^
ing it. We also recommended the Bar and Gates
to be removed.

The clearing away of Shire-lane, and all the
courts, alleys, passages, and holes in that lo-
cality would be an excellent operation upon that

£

60 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

sick part of London, and "heal the sores thereof,
for it shaketh/'

WOOD PAVEMENT.

The invention of wood pavement is likely to
produce a great change in the construction of
thoroughfares. The experiment which was com-
menced in Oxford-street, London, in December
1838, has succeeded beyond the most sanguine ex-
pectations ; it having been found to bear, without
shrinking, for nearly four years, the unceasing
traffick of one of the busiest thoroughfares in the
metropolis, and subject to all the influences of
difierent degrees of heat and cold, draught and
moisture. The pavement is the invention of D.
Stead, Esq., and consists of hexagonal wood blocks
of six or seven inches in diameter, and nine
inches deep, having the fibre upwards, and be-
velled at the edges. The advantages of wood
pavement consist in a degree of smoothness
which cannot be given to a road paved with stone,
the absence of noise, and a freedom from mud
and dust, which is alone sufficient to recommend
them to the inhabitants of populous places. It
appears that pavement of granite costs 14s. per
square yard, whilst pavement of wood costs only 8s.
or 8s. 6d., and the durability of the latter is nearly
equal to that of the former. The surveyors of the
highways in every town in the kingdom, should
correspond with the agent of the proprietors of
the patent, if they wish to avail themselves of this
admirable invention.

Although wood pavement is much liked, and
icannot be called an unpopular improvement^ yet

LONDON. 51

it meets with a good deal of opposition from some
people,* and reluctant approval from others, all
springing from the same self-interested motives,
viz. — the loss of those various classes who furnish
stone pavement ; and although it is laid down in
several streets in London, it seems confined to the
vicinity of thq churches, for the sake of doing
away with the noise of the coaches during divine
service on Sundays.

There is not one single source of human happi-
ness, says a modern author, against which there
have not been uttered the most portentous, threat-
ening, self-interested warnings and predictions.
Canals, turnpike-roads, vaccination, reform, infant
schools, railways, emigration, wood-pavement,
decimal coinage, &c., &c. There are always num-
bers of worthy, and moderately gifted men, who
bawl out death and ruin upon every improvement
which the varying aspect of human alffairs abso-
lutely requires, or science discovers. If the hatred
and abuse that all the various changes have ex-
perienced, which are now admitted to be marked
improvements in our condition, could be collected,
the histoiy might make folly a little more modest
and suspicious of its own decisions.

A few more alterations and improvements in
and around London may be hinted at here, before
we close our remarks on the metropolis.

Supposing a Quay-street or river-parade should
be formed all along the river side from the Tower

•

* The City of Cassan was burnt down, as the horses would not
draw the fire engines over the burning pavement! — Drivers of
coaches, and also cavalry soldiers say their horses cannot be pulled
up on wood pavemenU

£ 2

52 INPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

to Westminster-bridge ; the South side of St«
Paul's Church-yard should be widened, and an
opening made from thence down to the said new
Quay-street, and waterside, one hundred and
eighty feet wide; and a new public building
should be erected for Doctors Commons and
the Registry of Wills Office.

Carey's new map of London, for 1842, exhibits a
great deficiency of squares in the Northern and
Eastern parts of the metropolis ; now squares in
a great crowded noisy City are such delightful
places for private residences, and so airy and
healthy, that it will not be amiss to point out
where they would be useful, in order that capital-
ists in the building line may erect a few, as the
houses now occupying the ground become old and
useless.

A series or line of squares, angle to angle, would
be a very agreeable route for visitors to Victoria
Park, if built in a contiguous line from Finsbury-
square to that park. They should be large noble
squares.

Another series of squares would look well, and
be very useful, extending from the Artillery-
ground, Bunhill-row, to the New cattle-market,
Islington. Every house in a square should have a
rood of ground at the back. And another line of
squares would be useful, extendiing from Good*
man's-fields (Minories) Eastward, to the Tower
Hamlets' Cemetery.

Squares should also be encouraged in South-
wark, which is a portion of the metropolis singu-
larly deficient in these agreeable spots of green.

A fine straight road-or avenue might be carried

LONDON. 53

from St. James's Park, through Chelsea road to the
Royal Hospital at Chelsea ; and a chain bridge of
two piers (orequal to three arches over the Thames)
might be thrown over the river at that spot, for
light carriages only.

In looking over Carey's excellent map, it disco^
vers a beautiful plot of ground of about four
hundred acres, almost vacant, between Islington,
Camden Town, and Pancras, fit for a Park and
wood. Also near London-fields, Hackney, is
another fine plot of vacant ground of three hundred
acres, fit for a Park ; and exactly between these
two plots, is h, third vacant space, admirably suited
for a park, though small.

It would give some pleasing variety and novelty to
the parks if the houses and other buildings in each
park were of a difierent order of architecture ; thus,
all the edifices in Victoria Park might be on the
Chinese plan, such as Chinese pagodas, numerous
small flags, and vanes, and streamers, arches, low
houses of many rooms, all on the ground-floor,
Chinese railings, fish-ponds, artificial rocks and
bridges, fancifully decorated, and the houses
painted red, white and blue outside, and the park
would be known by two names, the Victoria, or
Chinese Park. Another park might be surrounded
by old towers, haunted castles, ancient baronial
houses and buildings of the most antique descrip-f
tion, all fortified with turrets and loop-hooles as for
ancient war. Another park might be surrounded
by church-like houses of ecclesiastical gothic
architecture, rural thatched cottages, holy crosses,
holy wells and springs, rustic bridges of primitive
construction, &c. &c. And another park might

64 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

display a goodly circle of tall buildings in the
Turkish style, of cupolas, minarets, turretted
mosques, crescents, &c. &c. ; so that a stranger
visiting any one of the new parks, might fancy
himself all of a sudden arrived in China, Turkey,
or some other foreign country.

We recommend the building of two noble, long,
splendid rooms in Victoria Park, on the plan of
the picture-gallery in the Louvre at Paris, each
room to be one thousand feet long by thirty-five
broad, with windows on both sides, and con-
nected together by the same line of roof, forming
a building two thousand feet in length, the floor
(a stone one) raised above the level of the ground
ten feet, but not to have any rooms or hollow
places under it ; the roof to be of iron, and no
wood employed in the building, so that there shall
never be any danger of fire. One room to be
called the Miscellaneous Picture-gallery, the other
room the Miscellaneous Museum. The first, for
the reception, unconditionally, of the thousands of
pictures and drawings that are rejected every year
by the Royal Academy, and with a retrospective
admission for all the pictures of past years, and
the works of all painters and artists, whether
British or foreign ; the pictures to remain there as
long as the owners pleased, for sale or not for
sale^ and without exp^ise to artists; the public
to pay one shilling each for admission, and the
gallery to be opened every day throughout the
year, except on Sundays, Christmas Day, and
Good Friday.

As the population goes on increasing, artists
will also increase, and if some such gallery be not

LONDON. 55

erected, they must be ruined and starved, and
people who are fond of pictures, but not judges of
painting, must be disappointed, for to the latter
class (and they are the great majority) it is all
one. whether they look at a Raphael or a public-
house sign-board, so that it be a pretty showy
painting.

We know not whether there would not be as
much amusement, perhaps we might say, fun, in
looking at the lame attempts of would-be artists,
as would compensate for the difference between
the National Gallery and this gallery, at least to
many spectators. ^

The National Gallery in Trafalgar-square is too
small and too confined for any exhibition worthy
of the metropolis. Two back-door wings ought to
be added to the National Gallery at the back of
the building.

We need not point out the utility of the room
for the Miscellaneous Museum. The British
Museum is already gorged to overflowing with
almost every wonderful thing that the world pro-
duces. What is to become of all the thousands
of curiosities that will arrive in England during
the next one hundred years ? Answer, — Another
museum must be erected for them.

The Grand Surrey Canal and Camberwell Canal
should be carried on straight to Nine Elms at
South Lambeth, and it would thus form a ready-
made line of defence, in anticipation of any ram^
part or breastwork which it might be necessary to
throw up at a moment's warning, in case of inva-
sion in any future war. The soil excavated from
this proposed continuation of the canal, should be

56 IMPROVEWTENT OF TOWNS.

carted to one of the intended parks of Lambeth or
Newington Butts, and formed into an ornamental
hilly which would be a pleasing novelty in this low»
damp, and level district.

The width of all canals should be fixed by law,
and they should never be of a less width than
ninety feet, except at the places where locks and
gates are fixed.

Bridges across rivers and canals should never
be further apart than half-a-mile, nor nearer toge-
ther than a quarter of a mile : when they are at a
less minimum distance than the latter, they ob-*
struct the sight of spectators looking up or down a
river, and spoil the view of a river as much as if
one or two more new bridges were erected across the
Thames between Westminster-bridge and London-
bridge would.

It is to be regretted that the parapet-walls of
the new London-bridge were not finished with
open balustrades, in the same style as the old
bridge was. The rising generation was surely
forgotten here. Boys and girls are curious people,
especially English boys and girls, (God bless
them !) and they must see everything. Now,
whenever there is a splendid procession on the
Thames, young people cannot look through the
balustrades as formerly, but they must climb upon
the parapet-walls, at risk and inconvenience to
themselves ; and children passing London-bridge
at any other time, lose entirely the sight of the
river for want of balustrades.

It is to be hoped that the embankments of the
River Thames in the city of London will be
finished with very low parapet- walls, surmounted

LONDON. 57

with a low balustrade, so that men can see over it
and children see through it.

The improvements in Cateaton-street should be
carried on straight to BuU-and-Mouth-street, Al-
dersgate-street, and thus form a wide thoroughfare
to the General Post-office.

If there is one thing more than another that is
to be deeply regretted in the new site of the new
Houses of Parliament, it is the haying built them
on the very bank of the River Thames, their foun-
dations being actually laid in the water, and pro-
jecting into the river, (if Carey's new map of
London be correct,) thus making it impossible to
carry a road along the river-side between the
water and the pile of building. It is inconceivable
what could be the inducements and secret motives
for crowding this handsome building into the river!
Was it for fear of a second gunpowder plot ? Was
it done as a means of safety from the violence of
an enraged London mob ?— or to guard against
fire? — or that our noble legislators might step
from their ships into the senate-house ? Whatever
was the reason, the present site has conferred an
eternal disappointment on poor London. I would
they were pulled down and rebuilt some distance
to the westward of Westminster Hall, with their
front and back elevation facing East and West,
and their South end abutting on a road along the
river-side, and thus forming with Westminster
Hall two sides of an immense open square, with
the river-road along its South side, which square
might be grass and shrubbery, or it might be only
gravelled all over, and a statue of Queen Victoria
in the middle. The East end of this capacious

58 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

square might also have been fenced with iron
rails, and a small marble arch in the middle of the
line of rails, like that in front of the palace of the
Tuileries at Paris, which latter superb edifice is
placed so advantageously with one end abutting
on the River Seine, that the delighted Parisians
can enjoy every day the view of both fronts with-
out the trouble of going on the water to see one of
them, as the poor disappointed Londoners are.

Seven Dials. — There is a small open spot called
Seven Dials, between Monmouth-street, King-
street, and St. Martin's-lane, so consummately dis-
agreeable to look at, and surrounded by seven
stacks of houses, so forlorn and miserable in their
appearance, that I do not know another place in
London that looks more bare-boned, disreputable,
and dreary, or more like a desert in a city. If these
seven blocks of houses were cleared away, and a
grand and large square formed on the site, with
grass and shrubbery, and a detached open colon-
nade (about fourteen feet high) made round the
enclosure, distinct from the houses, what a nice
sheltered promenade and beautiful novelty in the
architectural line would it be ; and what a delight-
ful line of communication would St. Martin's-lane
then form with Broad-street, Bloomsbury ; and
what an improvement it would be to that part of
the metropolis, so completely devoid of a respect-
able neighbourhood, as it is at present ! The in-
habitants of these disagreeable looking houses
(around Seven Dials) could not fail of being bene-
fitted by their removal to any other locality what-
ever; for no other place could possibly look so

LONDON. 59

cheerless and melancholy as this said open spot,
and its surrounding little streets.

Holhom Viaduct. — A Viaduct at Holborn-
bridge, from Snow-hill to Holborn-hill, has been
long talked of. If ever this project be carried into
execution, — and I think it ought, — it should be so
formed as to look like a city-gate or triumphal -arch,
as seen from Farringdon-street, with a couple of
small arches on each side for footways ; and if the
elevation be planned after this manner, with any
degree of taste, it will not spoil Farringdon-street in
the way that the Minories is disfigured by the Rail-
way-bridge. It must not be forgotten also, that
although a Viaduct should actually be accom-^
plished, still there must be kept open a carriage-
way down the two hills from Holborn and Snow-
hill to Farringdon-street; and in order that the
Viaduct, and the said two descents to the latter
street may be each of a noble width, the whole
space at Holborn-bridge must be made an im-
mense deal wider than it is at present.

A Walhalla or Pantheon should be erected in the
intended Park at Finsbury, for monuments and
statues of the illustrious dead ; and it strikes me
that a noble pyramid, 800 feet square at its base,
and 800 feet high, full of galleries, would be a
far more appropriate edifice for the reception of
statues, tombs, monuments, and tablets, than a
site crowded with coffins, full of stinking dead
bodies. And there would be no danger to the
health of people visiting the sacred mementos of
their relatives and friends, in such a pile, if it were
kept well warmed and ventillated.

60 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

The following would be a really useful improve-
menty to join Whitechapel-road to Oxford-street: —
viz., begin at Gray's Inn or Furnival's Inn, in
Holborn, and drive a wide street through all the
blocks of houses, from thence to West-street, com-
monly called Chick-lane ; widen the latter, and
drive a wide street from thence to the west^end
of London Wall ; widen the latter, and drive a
wide street from thence to Wentworth-street ;
widen the latter, and continue the wide street
till it opened out into Whitechapel-road, near the
London Hospital. This line would form a grand
thoroughfare through what may now be pro-
perly called the centre of London, and it would be
straight and level throughout, and highly useful
to the increasing population of the North-eastern
suburbs of the metropolis.

The foot-pavement in front of the Mansion-house
is not wide enough by six feet ; for, independent
of the great throng of people occasionally passing
on the footway, the distance of the crossing from
Comhill is so great, and the carriages and carts so
numerous, that it is at the imminent risk of many
people's lives and limbs that they get over safe.
An extension of the foot-pavement of only six feet
would do away with a great deal of the risk.

A small open square or crescent should be made
in front of the East India House, and an arcade
opening into the centre of the crescent or square ;
the handsome front of the India House would then
be seen to the greatest advantage, and the crescent
or square would be as much an ornament to the
latter as the whole together would be an improve-
ment to the neighbourhood.

LONDON. 61

VictcM'ia Avenue^ — Having in a previous page re-
commended an Avenue to be formed, to connect
the different Parks, and having well studied the
subject,thechief difficulties of which arise out of the
numerous obstacles from new buildings springing
up with such incredible speed all round the metro-
polis ; it may be as well to point out the only line
(and it should be a perfectly straight line) which,
at present, has the fewest streets to cut through,
and fewest obstacles to forming the " North
Avenue," on the North side of London.

I begin at the North-east angle of the Regent's
Park, say at the York and Albany Tavern, and
cut through two or three small streets, straight
to St. George's and St. Giles' burying-ground,
through part of that ground, straight to White
Conduit-lane, (requiring only one bridge over the
Regent's Canal,) thence through twelve small
streets or blocks of houses, called Islington, (pass-
ing by the South sides of Cloudesley-square, Gib-
son-square, and some white lead works,) thence
to the North of Whitmore's mad house, and a
basin near Kingsland-road (no bridge required,)
cutting through one small street there, and con-
tinuing the Avenue to the south end of Lansdown-
place, London-fields, and from thence crossing
Mare-street, Hackney, to Grove- street, and turn-
ing with a small sweep round to the South, enter
Victoria Park near Providence-row.

There is no other line, so near London, but
this, that affords so much open country quite free
from houses, water, or any other obstacles, but the
few small streets before mentioned. And it is im-

62 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

possible that any owner of property could object
to the avenue, as it would greatly increase the re-
spectability of his neighbourhood and the value of
his estate.

The Avenue-road should be somewhat elevated
above the level of the country ; have four rows of
trees on each side ; be perfectly straight the whole
distance of four miles, with a circle at each quarter
of a mile, and an obelisk in each circle ; and the
width of the road three hundred feet throughout.

It would form a grand boundary, as it were, to
the North-side of the metropolis ; and any future
Parks formed along its course could be easily
joined to the avenue, whether they were to the
North or South of it. The expense would not be
much, and I think one thousand small square
plots of ground, for villas to be built on both sides
its whole length, would pay the cost. The sine
qua nouy is, it must be straight the whole length
of four miles, or the novelty and beauty of the
mall would not be worth a rush.

The East Avenue could be formed (from Vic-
toria Park) along Grove-road, and across Bow-
common down to the Isle of Dogs, or the fortress
to be built thereon. There are very few obstacles
on this line, and only one bridge required.

The South Avenue, to the South of Southwark,
might be formed any where from South Lambeth
to the Camberwell and Grand Surrey Canals, and
along the said Canals, without difficulty now, as
much of the ground is nearly open ; but it should
be marked out quickly, or in a very few years, the
increase of buildings will render it impossible.

LONDON. 63

Elysium Fields^ and Field of Mar s^ are two other
desiderata in the city of London. I should recom-
mend about ten acres of ground to be cleared in
the rear of the Mansion-house, for the former
happy locality, and have it laid out in walks,
studded with statues, planted with small standard
trees (no flower beds), and seats fixed in various
places : and if a fountain, on a handsome scale,
could be contrived in it, it would be a delightful
spot in the very heart of the City, well deserving
the title of Elysium. The Field of Mars should
be an open level plain of about twelve acres, per-
fectly square, and always be clean gravelled and
kept free from grass, vegetation, trees, and every
intruding obstacle : it might be situated any where
in the parish of Whitechapel, but I think the
neighbourhood of Goodman's-fields would be very
suitable. This gravelled plain should be appro-
priated for the public meetings of the Queen's
subjects, as a safety-valve, where they could un-
bosom their grievances, when they had any, eva-
porate their passions in speeches, let out their
secrets, make known their wants in an open and
honest manner becoming Englishmen, and by
concocting their petitions in the open air, not
drive them to secret sedition in lurking-dens,
where rebellion can be matured unknown to the
authorities, and no steps be taken to prevent the
sudden burst of unexpected (and therefore unpre-
pared-for) and dangerous riots and violence.

Foot-bridge over the Thames. There is a scheme
in progress to erect a Foot-bridge across the river
opposite Hungerford Market, which I very much
regret ; for it quite spoils the view up and dowa

64 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

the river, already sufficiently intercepted by a
sufficient number of bridges. Surely the South-
warkites cannot be so badly off for fish that they
must take the Strand fish-market by storm in this
manner. Why should they ford the river at that
particular spot and hunger after the Strand fish,
when they might form a Strand on their own side,
and build a Hunger-ford market there, if they had
a molecule of spirit in their hearts, or an animal-
cule of wisdom in their phreno-mesmeric upper-
stories, or a decimal shilling in their well-buttoned
inexpressibles? I denounce the intended Foot-
bridge, and prophecy that it will be taken by
storm by the genii of the winds, or be carried
away by the aerial steam-carriage, soaring along
on the wings of Boreas and JBolus !

Grand Flight of Steps down to the Thames. —
The first time I went up to London, after the old
London bridge had been cleared away, I directed
my steps towards Fish-street-hill, to feast my eyes
on the grand flight of stone steps which I expected
to see on the spot where the old bridge joined the
shore; for although the Thames is not quite so
grand a river as the Ganges, yet I naturally
thought so fine an opportunity of forming a grand
ghaut down to the water, like one of those at
Benares, would not be lost, now that the first and
only opening from the street to the river was
effected by the total removal of a bridge. When
I got to Fish-street-hill I could scarcely tell where
I was, for there was neither bridge, nor river, nor
ghaut to be seen : but after attentively considering
th^ shops and the church, I became assured that

LONDON, 65

I was really at the bottom of Fish-street-hill, and
that the sight of the water was blocked up by the
erection of a high wall or a building of some kind!
(the steam-packet office I believe.) The reader
may guess my blank looks, my astonishment, dis-
appointment, pain, and incredulity, for I could
not for some time believe my own eyes.

After moralizing for some time on the different
ways which men pursue to spoil their towns, I was
fain to believe that it must be a sort of hydro-
phobia with which the Londoners are afflicted ;
for, on recurring to other streets that abut on the
Thames, I recollected that the sight of the water
had been most rigidly and carefully shut out,
either by the erection of a house or a wall at the
bottom of every street along the Strand ; and that
instead of a substantial iron-railing being placed
across those streets near the water, and grand
flights of steps leading down from thence to the
river, people are obliged to ferret out the steep and
break-neck stairs hidden up by the sides of the
bridges, or down some narrow dirty lane or alley,
whenever they want a gondola.

Perhaps the citizens are afraid that Old Father
Thames might take it into his head to pay them a
visit, and walk into the City, and steal off with
some of their fine women during the dark nights ;
and so it is better to blind his eyes and prevent
him from looking up the streets, the very sight of
which might set his mouth a- watering; and if
there is the least danger of the old fellow running
off with the chief treasures of the City, the citizens
cannot be too much applauded for the care they
have taken of these jewels, by erecting walls at

66 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

the ends of all the streets. But I would balk Old
Father Thames in a different manner: I would
form a grand flight of steps down to the water the
•whole width of the street, fenced at the top with
a noble iron railing, so stout, that even a troop of
war-chariots should not be able to burst through
it, and I would plant a powerful gigantic Egyptian
sphinx, on each side the flight of steps, with their
faces to the water, so that the Old Father might
be afraid of venturing up the steps, while he might
employ all his time in endeavouring to solve their
enigmas ; or, as we are at peace with the Emperor
of the Celestials, perhaps His Majesty would be
so good as to send us a pair of live dragons (of the
green species, as they are the fiercest), which
would more effectually frighten Old Father Thames
and keep him within bounds. Thus the citizens
would get to their gondolas hung with crimson,
sky-blue, and gold, without having to descend some
narrow filthy alley.

However, as the bottom of Fish-street-hill is
blocked up past recovery, a grand flight of steps
should be formed at the Tower wharf, where the
Lord Mayor often takes water for Westminster
on his coronation day.

All that part of Kensington Gardens, to the
East of the Serpentine water, should be added to
Hyde Park, and that ridiculous high wall be
pulled down ; and to make up for this concession,
the gardens should be extended a good distance
on their Western side.

Who was the architect that planned the street
by which the Mansion House and the Monument
were brought together? — ^Whoever he was, he is

YORK. 67

the man I should recommend to plan out and exe-
cute any alterations and improvements, which
Government or the City authorities might contem-
plate for the metropolis, as I am sure he would do
them justice and leave nothing to be desired.

And as for my own humble suggestions, let any
map-maker take a large sheet map of London,
and draw upon it all the improvements I have
herein proposed, not omitting one, and I would
venture a trifling odds, that people will say that
London would be the most magnificent city in the
world, if they were all accomplished : and, what
would be worth all the rest, it would greatly stimn-
late the London shop trade, give extensive em-
ployment to all the labouring classes of the metro-
polis, and benefit the revenue by two millions
sterling per annum.

YORK.

I visited York to see if any improvements could be
suggested for this much neglected City, which the
citizens have suffered, in this age of improvement,
to be eclipsed in advancement by many a younger
and less noted town. I had heard so much of this
venerable City, the second capital of England, as
it has been called, that I fully expected to see a
large place half as big as London, with streets,
certainly not swarming with human beings, (for I
was told they were deserted and silent, and that
the grass grew in them,) but exhibiting every evi-
dence of the ancient age of romance. Great was

F 2

68 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

my disappointment : I found a small filthily-dirty/
confined town, not much larger than Chester,
built all awry, or all on one side of its principal
centre of attraction, full of little, narrow, ugly
crooked streets, of mean, poor, shabby, ill-looking
houses, (neither gothic nor modern,) intersected by
hundreds — I might almost say thousands of filthy,
"cut-throat looking" lanes, courts, and alleys,
many of them scarcely wide enough for a wheel-
barrow. And so far from grass growing in the
streets, there was such a crowded population on
one particular day, (when they all came out of
their dirty lanes,) that I found it no very pleasant
job to squeeze myself through them.

There must be thousands of poor people living
in the lanes and alleys in the most uncomfortable
plight, for I picked my way as well as I could
into many of these out-of-sight places, and could
scarcely set my foot down on the ground for the
horrible filth scattered about in every direction,
which must be as injurious to the health of the
natives, as it is sickening to a stranger, not accus-
tomed to such shocking places, (and this filth
runs into the river Ouse, which supplies them
with water !) It was on a day of the races that I
entered the City of York, and the first thing that
stared me in the face, was a street called Coney-
street, so narrow, that it was nearly blocked up
with carriages laden with handsome ladies in
splendid costume, returning from the races, and
the carriages so entangled with one another in
several places, that there was a dead stand, and no
one could proceed for some time. As they all
chose to drive through this said Coney-street, we

LONDON. 69

may suppose it to be the best or principal one in
the City ; — then what must the other streets be if
this is the most respectable ? In fact, there is not
another street even so good as this, except Parlia-
ment-street, that I could find, after four days' tra-
versing every street in the City.

If the respectable tradespeople of York desire
to prosper, — if they have any wish to attract visi-
tors to the City from all parts of England, and
thereby benefit trade, — if they wish to make their
City a city indeed, and such as will not only re-
pay people for the trouble of coming to see it, but
also tempt many to remain and take up a perma-
nent residence in or near it, they must act upon
the plans I am now going to detail ; and I shall
suggest such improvements as will make it one of
the most beautiful and delightful ancient cities in
England.

There are many things that I have to find fault
with, and I shall speak of these first. Of what
use was it to repair the ancient City- walls? —
What good did the citizens propose to reap from
their being kept up ? — ^And what a heavy useless
expense ! It is true they are ancient relics, and
venerable, but the romance and beauty of these
walls are utterly spoilt and lost, through the fact
of there being rows of houses and even streets out-
side them, nearly all round the town : thus they
are blocked in and hidden from the sight of tra-
vellers approaching the place. Now, if these
ancient fortifications were actually the outermost
thing of all, so as to enclose the town, and there
were no buildings beyond them, they would then ap-
pear warlike, and nothing could look more roman-

70 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

tic than the City would, viewed from the outside ;
but aB it is, they are not only useless and almost
out of sight, but perfectly injurious, inasmuch as
they force people to go a long way round to get
out of, or into the town, to any particular neigh-
bourhood notnear a gate. Perhaps it would not have
cost much more to have erected lines of entirely
new walls, but exactly resembling the old, in anti-
quity of appearance, all round the town in a more
extended circumference, and embracing all the
houses and streets at present outside of, and con-
tiguous to the City. Any body can see that the
old walls are a modern erection, for they have been
rebuilt nearly from the ground ; and however the
citizens may please themselves with the thought
of having preserved the old walls, they cannot
cheat antiquarian strangers into a belief that they
are the old walls.

It would have been much more useful, if the
ruins of the City-walls had been all levelled and
formed into a kind of wide embankment or raised
promenade, planted with mulberry, horse-chesnut,
or sycamore trees, on each side, and rustic chairs
and seats fixed at regular distances : this would
have been a pleasanter and safer walk than that
on the top of the narrow walls which are lofty and
have no parapet on the inner side, so that an
invalid is in danger of turning giddy, or having a
swimming of the head if he dares venture to take
the air upon them. Now I would recommend the
citizens to cease repairing the ancient walls, and
in the course of another century they will be
crumbling into ruins again, and then they should
follow my advice and form them into wide pro-

YORK. . 71

menades and avenues on high and dry ridges of
ground, which would be then so much the more
agreeable and desirable, from the circumstance
that the population and streets of the city will
have multiplied on all sides, and will therefore
require more ventilation and airy promenades
within.

But being as fond of anciently fortified cities
as anybody, (and I have seen them in perfection
in the East,) I propose the following plan of
keeping up the appearance of warlike walls, and
giving to the City an outward aspect of being still
enclosed with fortifications. I must, however,
entirely change the ground plan of the City, and
consider the Minster the centre, from which, and
by which, all my new streets, walls, and squares,
will be laid down, so as to ensure the greatest
convenience and greatest beauty.

I surround the whole City, and part of the
suburbs with a polygon of straight lines of houses
in the form of defensive walls and towers, embrac-
ing as much ground to the North and North-
west of the Minster as is built over on the East
and South-east, thus placing the Cathedral ex-
actly in the centre of the City. These lon^ lines
of houses should be built with their backs to the
countr}% and without windows on that side, and
their fronts facing inwards towards the Minster; the
backs without windows should be built with stone,
rough, like the old City- walls, and the parapets of
their roofs should be battlemented, or castellated,
and carried up so high as to hide their roofs from
being seen from the side of the country : there
should be a projecting house, either round or

Y2 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

square, as the case may be, at intervals o^ sixty or
seventy yards in these ** city-walls of houses,"
all round the City, to give them the appearance of
towers, or tower- bastions ; and there should be a
line of loop-holes in the upper stories, or landing
places of staircases, of the houses, as one sees in
old castles sometimes : the houses should have no
doors opening from the back into the country, but
all their windows and doors should be in the front,
say within the City, where each house could also
have a large slip of ground for a garden or shrub-
bery adjoining to its front. Wherever a road or
street leads out of the City, there should be a
gothic arch of the most capacious dimensions
through one of the houses, and the building should
be turretted and ornamented with sundry other
additions to make it look in every respect the
same as an ancient gateway. The loopholes
might be three and a-half feet long, and four or
five inches wide, and might be glazed at the option
of the inhabitants of each house. The chimneys
are the only things that might spoil the delusive
appearance of these fictitious walls of defence, but
they should be so contrived and placed, as to give
them the appearance of slender towers on the top
of the walls (roofs), with appropriate miniature
battlements.

This polygon of continuous lines of houses to
surround the new ground-plan of the City of York
in lieu of fortified walls, should have no open
interval, or aperture, or break, through them any-
where, but only the arched gateways before men-
tioned.

We have thus given a brief sketch of a proposed

YORK, 73

substitute for defensive walls and (fictitious) forti-
fications, and will now trace them on the ground-
plan. This new line of defence and for the exten-
sion of the City to the North and North-west of
the Minster, should commence half-a-mile North-
east of the bridge (in Monk-street) over the River
Foss, and be carried from thence to a quarter of a
mile North of Lady Mill, with one salient angle ;
and from thence straight to Clifton (here another
salient angle) ; and from thence straight down to
the Ouse, half-a-mile West of the Yorkshire
Museum* Crossing the river, the line should be
carried straight to the angle of the old City-wall,
near Micklegate Bar. The old wall would sufiice
from thence to the House of Correction ; and from
the latter, a new line might be carried (crossing
the two rivers) straight to the salient angle
West of Walmgate Bar ; and from the latter Bar
a new line should be carried straight to a point
half-a-mile North of Laythorp Postern-bridge ;
and from that point should be continued straight
to the place where we commenced. These new
lines of artificial defence, forming eight sides
of unequal length, would place the Minster in the
centre of the City, where it ought to be. These
\ new fortifications, like a continuous line of castles,
petitions though they be, would look well, and
could be all finished and inhabited in twenty
years or less, and in process of time age would
give them that venerable appearance of antiquity
which is so delightfully romantic.

All the spare ground enclosed within these walls
not required for building upon, nor marked out
for streets, squares and market-places, should be

74 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

turned into apple and pear orchards. I particu-
larly recommend these two fruits from the fine-
ness of those I saw in the gardens at York : the
pears were as sweet as sugar, and the Ribston
pippin is the finest apple in the world, and there
are not two more venerable trees in any earthly
Eden than the apple and pear, consequently they
would be very befitting an ancient city.

I consider it absolutely indispensable to the
improvement of the City, the purification of its
atmosphere, and future preservation from filth and
ofiensive effluvia, that all the poorer inhabitants
be compelled to reside in wide streets, and be
forced to quit those thousands of nasty courts
and alleys in which they burrow and seclude
themselves : there should therefore be several new
wide streets and spacious open squares formed
within the new fortifications, and the owners of
the property in the dirty lanes and alleys should
be bought out of those wretched places, the people
compelled to quit them, by pulling them down,
which would also in many instances be a great
good to better houses in their vicinity, by afford-
ing cleared spots of ground to add to their back-
courts, which they might turn into beautiful
shrubberies.

No houses or other buildings should be suffered
to be built in the style of modern architecture, nor
in the Italian or Grecian style ; but every edifice
should be gothic, to correspond with the Minster
and other ancient buildings ; the gothic arch for
doors, stone mullions for windows, and gable-ends
of houses^ should prevail in every street : the pri^
rate houses in the new squares alone, might be

YORK. 76

modern. Stone for the fronts of houses should
always be used in preference to brick, whenever
possible; or stucco and cement, as a substitute
for stone.

Every street in the City ought to be widened,
with the exception of Parliament-street; and
several of the present pitiful streets might be swept
away with advantage to the general thoroughfare
of the town.

All the buildings along both banks of the River
Ouse, right through the City, should be cleared
away, and the river itself should be widened from
the Ouse-bridge to Wellington-row ; and a wide
street, or promenade, or drive, should be made
along both the river-banks, quite through the City,
say from beyond St. George's-close to the proposed
new fortification-wall beyond the swimming-baths
of the Manor -shore, on one side, and the same dis-
tance on the opposite bank : this street would
only have houses on one side of it, the fronts of the
houses facing the river at a distance of twenty-six
yards from the river ; and a low battlemented wall,
say four feet high, along the edge of the latter for
the safety of foot-passengers.

There are about twenty vessels that come up to
York and lie in the Ouse, to the great disfigure-
ment of this pretty river : they might be all moored
in a small basin, which should be dug on purpose
in some low piece of ground ; but nothing but gon-
dolas, yachts, and pleasure-boats should be seen
or sufiered on the bosom of the Ouse within the
City. It is a far prettier stream than any canal
in the famed City of Venice, and why should it be

76 IMPROVEMENT OP TOWNS.

degraded with a parcel of dung-barges and coal-
boats?

While at York, I enquired whether there were
any warm or tepid baths, or vapour and fumigating
baths, and to my great astonishment was told
there was nothing of the kind in that ancient City !
— so then, whoever visits York, must make up his
mind to forego the usual refreshing ablutions after
his journey, and quit the City as soon as he can to
get a tepid bath elsewhere that he cannot have
there. In the East, a bath is always necessary
after a journey, and it is equally a useful luxury
in England.

There should be a stand in Parliament-street
for hackney-coaches, flies, cabriolets, and sedan-
chairs.

A general cemetery should be formed in Bishop-
fields, eighteen acres in extent.

A bridge should be built over the Ouse, to the
West of the swimming-baths of the Manor-shore,
and another bridge still further to the West or
North-west of that, (close to the new line of de-
fensive-wall.)

It is much to be regretted that the theatre was
built in the vicinity of the Cathedral, a most im-
proper place, besides being hid up in a nook or
corner of the town. It ought to have been built
in Sampson-square, and I hope it will yet, and of
a little larger size. The present theatre might be
turned into a concert- room for sacred music, or it
should be pulled down ; the latter alternative I
shall recommend when I detail my plans for im-
proving the approaches to the Minster. A play-

YORK. 77

house ought not to be allowed near the Cathedral »
nor a Roman-Catholic Meeting-house.

I have the same fault to find with the custom
of holding a market in Parliament-street that I
have with markets in the streets of other towns ;
they are a cursed nuisance ; the people block up
the foot- pavements, and the sheds and crockery-
ware spread out upon the ground in the street,
make it dangerous for horses and carriages to
pass. Are there no empty or vacant plots of
ground in all the City where one or more covered
market-places could be built ? If there are not,
let the City be enlarged North-east, North, and
North-west. Sampson-square is also spoilt once
every week, by the erection of a parcel of black-
looking booths for a market. I advise the Yorkites
to take a trip to Liverpool, and learn a lesson how
to build capacious covered markets.

Nothing could exceed the disappointment I felt
the first time I saw York Castle, about which I
had read and heard so much, and the very name
of which is in every body's mouth all over York-
shire. Instead of seeing towers upon towers, bas-
tions flanking rough weather-beaten walls pierced
with loop-holes, projecting turrets and watch-
towers, a ditch and draw-bridge, a commanding
situation, and an esplanade of open ground en-
tirely round it, afibrding a good view of this cele-
brated stronghold, a stranger comes suddenly upon
a high dead wall as smooth as glass, like some
modern building plastered over with cement, sur-
mounted with church-like battlements, strange
unheard-of buttresses, and an appearance at the
top which at once shows the sham empty attempt

78 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

to make it look like a castle ! and the greater part
of this celebrated castle is either entirely blocked
up out of public view, or buried in a dull narrow
winding street !

To make this ancient Castle a real ornament to
the City^ all the houses and buildings around it
should be cleared away, a glacis or grass-plat, one
hundred yards in width, should be carried entirely
round the new walls, and the latter should have
three or four additional towers (square ones), to
project as much as the gateway- to wers ; a narrow
ditch should also encircle the whole pile, and a
small bridge made opposite the entrance gate;
fish should be kept in the ditch to keep the water
sweet. What ill-judged parsimony and bad taste
possessed the minds of the citizens to go and alter
the Castle as it is? — What could induce them to fill
up the venerable ditch ? — (What is a castle without
a ditch ?)— and to remove first one ancient relic and
then another, till the venerable building is no more
like a castle than it is like a hogshead of beer.
What prospect had they of gratifying a stranger's
curiosity in building those smooth even walls, with-
out so much as a sham loop-hole to relieve their
deadness, and, with the exception of the two towers
of the entrance gate, might fairly be mistaken for
the lofty walls of the London Docks. I had been
plagued by my friends, for several years, to go to
York, on purpose to see this famous Castle, but I
am now almost sorry I have seen it, for the plea-
sures of imagination have given place to the dis-
appointment of reality: it may be a very good
prison, but unless the improvements here recom-
mended be efiected, call it no longer a Castle, for
it is not worthy of the name.

YORK. 79

Suppose a stranger were to ask me, in what
part of the City of York is the principal square
situated ? I should say there was no such locality
as a square, imless that corner-hole called St.
Helen's is one, or that market-place called Samp-
son-square, which is much more like a boy's play-
ground at some great school than a square.

How thoughtless it was, to make arched foot-
ways on each side the ancient gates of the City,
the Bars; how much better it would have been
(as these relics were to be preserved) to have made
a carriage-way on either side, leaving these ancient
gateways in the middle, like triumphal arches, as
the Parisians have done with the gates St. Denis
and St. Martin at Paris ; but the good citizens of
the second metropolis of England have not quite
so much good taste in these matters as our neigh-
bours across the water.

And, pray, what is the reason that there is no
University at York ? Methinks its situation is
not only very centrical for all the Northern counties,
but its surrounding topography is interesting and
beautiful, and well suited for meditation and study,
quite as much so as Oxford or Cambridge. Two
or three colleges might be built in the proposed
new part of York, and be formed into a University
for the youth of our increasing population, who
would, in time, be the certain means of benefiting
the City by the increase of visitors, the increase of
trade, and by giving a fresh stimulus to the popu-
lation, and liveliness to the dull town : and I do
not hesitate to say, that there is not in all England,
a more fitting place for a University than York.

All the noblemen and gentlemen of Yorkshire

80 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

should form themselves into a society for the im-
proving, enlarging, rebuilding, embellishing, beau-
tifying, and enriching of this neglected old City,
with the resolution of making it the polite capital
of the North of England, and with the determina-
tion of each having a town-residence in it, and re-
siding in it several months in every year.

There ought to be no factories or mills in or
near this City, but it should be entirely a seat of
learning, a cradle of the church, a military capital,
a seat of justice, a school for the polite arts, espe-
cially painting, a second London for fashion,
wealth, and good company, and an irresistible
spot of attraction to all travellers whether in
winter or summer. I saw one factory there : it
ought to be swept away, and no more lofty chim-
neys, vomiting clouds of black smoke, be allowed
within twenty miles of the City.

We will now consider the improvements re-
quired about the Cathedral, ** the glory of the
kingdom " as it has been truly called ; for even if
a stranger has previously visited other cathedrals,
every edifice he has seen will seem to shrink into
insignificance when compared with this.

The central tower of the Minster should be
raised one story higher, so as to afford space
above the windows for a row of small windows ;
and a spire should be built on the top of the said
tower. The vestries and offices which are still
permitted to disfigure the building, near the porch
on the south side of the Minster, ought to be re-
moved.

The extinguisher-kind of roof over the chapter-
house should be altered into a light white spire,

YORK. 81

Supported upon eight open-arched, slender but-
tresses, resting on the top of the eight-sided wall,
forming a hollow octagonal light gothic spire, more
in keeping with the architecture of the rest of the
elaborate pile.

Many monumental tablets were destroyed by
the late fires in the Minster, and especially grave-
stones ; and the debris have been removed and re-
placed with plain stones. I inquired for a small
monument to the memory of two clergymen (of a
date prior to 1600), but it could not be found, and
as I knew that such a tablet or stone had been
there, a friend having seen it, it is of course de-
stroyed, and other monuments are likely to share
the same fate. This fact suggests the utility of
collecting the Inscriptions of all the graverStones
and monuments in the Cathedral, especially of the
broken ones that are taken up to be cast away,
and of having them printed in a book, in alpha-
betical order, a copy of which should be kept in
the vestry, and the rest of the edition might be
bound up with the " Guide to York,." for as to ex-
amining the registers of deaths and burials in the
vestry-books, it is a useless labour, as I found it ;
the writing is worn out and the dates do not go
far enough back ; and, besides, a mere entry of a
name and burial does not afford that satisfactory
history of a family that a full Inscription does.

Musical festivals should be forbidden being held
or celebrated in York Cathedral or any other
place of worship : it is a desecration of a holy tem-
ple dedicated to a very jealous Being, who has
already levied the heavy fine of 100,000/. for the
repairs of the fire; and He may be again pro-

82 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

yoked (if any more pretended religious musical
entertainments be repeated) to suffer the edifice
to be again destroyed. Beware! — Take warning!
— " My house shall be called a house of prayer."

It is very wrong to suffer tombs and tomb-stones
to be erected on the floor of the Cathedral, espe-
cially in the aisles of the choir : the rule should be,
that no tombs or grave-stones be allowed on the
floor, but such as are intended to be on the same
level and to form part of the floor : it is a great
nuisance to have the aisles and other floors of a
church obstructed by tombs standing here and
there, in all directions as if it were a church-yard,
some of them three, four, and five feet high: if
such a custom prevailed extensively, the progress
of people walking about inside a church would be
constantly hindered, and many monuments on the
walls would be quite blocked up, so that no one
could get near enough to see or read the inscrip-
tions: so long as people contented themselves
with fixing monuments and tablets on the walls
it was all very well, but no influence or dignity
should be allowed to prevail so far as to permit
the relatives of a deceased person to build a tomb-
stone on the floor : there are several tombs on the
floor of the aisles of the choir in York Minster,
and as they oblige visitors to make a detour round
them (for they are sadly in the way), they ought
to be removed and be erected outside the church.

It is to be hoped that an Act of Parliament will
soon be passed, that will put a stop for ever to the
custom of burying people inside churches and
other places of worship ; and that a Pantheon will
be erected for the reception of monuitients and

YORK. 83

Statues to the honourable memory of illustrious
individuals.

The situation of York Minster, as well as the
approaches to it, are extremely disadvantageous
and unfavourable to an examination of the beauties
of the edifice. It might have been expected, that
instead of a stranger having to inquire his way to
this *^ august temple," as is now the case, the in*
creased width of the streets and the grandeur of
the buildings, would have pointed the road to the
most cursory observer. Instead of this, the streets
leading to it are narrow ; the houses, in general,
mean ; and these ill-looking gloomy buildings are
crowded so near on almost every side, that the fine
effect of the noble edifice is entirely lost. This
circumstance has long been seen and deplored by
the numerous friends and admirers of this the
noblest Minster in the kingdom ; and a few of the
hindrances, to a general view of the building, have
been removed through the public spirit and libe-
rality of the Dean and Chapter. The new Deanery
and Residentiary lately erected, and the gardens
and shrubbery so tastefully laid out on the north
side of the Minster, are well worth the attention of
a stranger, the grounds being thrown open to the
public. A very natural question occurs in the con-
templation of this subject : the Dean and Chapter,
it appears, are very willing to make every possible
improvement around the Minster, and have already
expended large sums on this work, but why do
not the wealthy classes come forward in a liberal
spirit, and assist in the accomplishment of such
desirable improvements ? Why are the Dean and
Chapter expected to sacrifice their emoluments or

G 2

:84

IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

private fortunes in the execution of works for the
public pleasure? What is the reason that the
wealthy public stand aloof — are so backward, so
Btingy, so shy of lending their assistance in liberal
subscriptions for the completion of public improve-
ments, objects in which every member of society
must share gratification and pleasure? We will
now state, in continuation of our plan, the im-
provements required around the Cathedral.

In the first place, the little church of St. Michael-
le-Belfry should be carefully pulled down, every
stone being first numbered, and with the materials
a handsome large church should be built in one of
the quarters of my proposed new part of the City,
which I shall describe presently. And secondly,
all the houses which surround and crowd upon the
Minster-yard should be removed : these consist of
some piles of buildings, extending from the Resi-
dentiary (the latter not to be touched), including
Precentor's-court, part of Little Blake-street, all
Peter-gate, and part of Stone-gate, as far as Grape-
lane, and all the houses from thence which abut
on the Minster-yard, in a circle round to the back
of the Deanery (the latter building not to be
touched). The whole of this space of ground to
the distance of one hundred yards from the Min-
ster in every direction being cleared, should be
enclosed with a low wall and iron railing, like
that of St. Paul's Churchyard, London, and then
planted with grass and shrubbery. The inha-
bitants of the houses that are to be pulled down,
should be allowed the first choice of the houses in
the new grand streets, which of course must be

YORK» 85

built before they are removed, and they would
lose nothing by the exchange.

We will now proceed to trace the direction of
the new grand streets. The first naturally relates
to the Western grand entrance of the Cathedral,
opposite to which and perpendicular to it, a hand-
some street should be opened, thirty yards wide,
and carried through every opposing obstacle or
building, down to the River Ouse, in a perfectly
straight line. This street should consist entirely of
shops on both sides. It would pass through part of
the Manor-house, along the back of the Yorkshire
Museum, (which might then have an additional
front to the new street,) and sweep away part of
the ruins of St. Mary's Abbey, which cannot be
helped ; but the materials of those ruins might be
built into and preserved in some other ancient-
looking edifice.

The second grand street naturally springs from
the other entrance of the Minster (the South), and
should be opened exactly opposite that door, and
be carried in a perpendicular straight line to Samp-
son-square. The street should be twenty-six yards
wide, with shops on both sides.

Wherever any old little church stood in the
way of the new streets, they should be pulled
down, and their materials carefully applied to the
building of other edifices, all of the ancient gothid
order. There are twenty-four churches in this
little City, which is just twelve more than it re-
quires at present.

Walmgate - street should be widened, made
straight and of an even width, and be carried on
till it joined the South end of Parliament-street,

86 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

with which it is almost in a line already: this
would then be a very tolerable street, and a great
improvement.

A new straight street should be built from St.
George's Bar to the South end of Parliament-
street, with a new bridge over the River Foss in
its line. This new street would form one line
with Parliament-street, and both together a mag-
nificent street, if of the same noble width through-
out.

The whole of Micklegate -street should be wi-
dened and straightened, from the Bar to the Ouse
Bridge ; and another straight street should be
carried from the latter to the Great North of Eng-
land Railway Station.

A very fine street might be made from the Ouse
Bridge straight to Laythorp Postern, with very
little deviation, and few alterations of the present
streets that form the nearest line between those
two points ; they would merely require widening,
— namely. Little Ouse -gate. High Ouse -gate.
Pavement-street, and St. Saviour's-gate-street, and
carrying it through two blocks of houses to Jew-
bury. A fine wide street to the extremities of
this part of the City would very much improve the
neighbourhood.

A noble wide street should be carried from the
Ouse Bridge straight to the front of the two round
towers of the entrance-gate of the Castle. The
vista of the two towers would have a grand ap-
pearance, which at present is entirely lost and
hidden in Tower-street. Tower-street and all the
buildings round the Castle should be abolished, as
I have previously suggested.

YORK.

87

A promenade should be thrown open to the
public along the opposite shore of the River Foss,
which surrounds the North-east side of the Castle,
and extend from the bridge (of the road to Selby)
to the proposed new bridge and street that is to
connect St. George's Bar with the South end of
Parliament-street.

The shrubbery and grounds of the Yorkshire
Museum should extend down to the proposed road
along the river-bank, and take in the whole width
from the present Swimming Baths to the Water-
Works ; and no houses or other buildings should
be suffered to obstruct the view of the river from
the said shrubbery and grounds.

The Water- Works should be removed, and be
built a mile up the stream above the town, where
pure water can be had, and at a higher level.

Baths and bathing establishments should be
built above the town, and not below the town ; for
in the latter case the water cannot be pure.

The River Foss should be deepened to that of
the Ouse, as far as the Canal and Union Gas-
works, and the lock and sluice should be removed
to some spot higher up the stream, and then a fine
basin might be made of that fork of land between
the Foss and the Canal, for the shipping of the
town, instead of suffering them to block up the
beautiful stream of the Ouse. As for the Foss, it
is not worth looking at ; but it would serve thus
as a kind of harbour ; and a Custom-house might
be erected in that locality, and quays and jetties
for the keels to unload at.

Having disposed of the improvements of the old
part of the City, we now come to the consideration

88 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

of the proposed new quarters, to the North of the
Cathedral, which in fact will extend round from
North-east to North-west. And in the first place.

Booth am-street and road should be made of the
handsome width of thirty yards its whole length,
which will extend to the new fortification- wall at
Clifton.

A circumferential street should be carried round
the City within the new fortification-walls; and
then seven principal streets, from twenty-six yards
to thirty yards wide each, should diverge from the
Minster, like rays, as a common centre, and join
the circumferential street. Bootham-road to Clif-
ton would be one of these principal streets.

Eight smaller streets, twenty yards wide each,
should be built exactly between and parallel to
the forementioned seven grand streets, and the
two new streets from the West end and East end
of the Minster. The eight smaller streets being
only half the length of the grand streets, and
commencing from the circumferential street.

Short streets should connect all the streets to-
gether in a Vandyke circle (at about their middle)
all round the Minster, to save distance and afibrd
facility of communication throughout this new
part of the City.

One of the grand streets in this new quarter
should consist of the frontages of three large
colleges, in the gothic style (with spacious gardens
behind them) ; also a number of handsome man-
sions for the masters, and respectable houses
suitable for private lodgings for students living
outside the colleges.

The other six grand streets in the new quarter

YORK. 89

should exhibit a pleasing variety of squares, cres-
cents, circles, ovals, hexagons, octagons, triangles,
&c., with shrubbery, grass, fountains, and statues;
— the squares to consist of private houses, and the
other parts of the streets to consist of shops.

A Mansion-house for the Lord Mayor, and some
other public buildings, especially a Picture Gal-
lery, and a Music Hall larger than that at Bir-
mingham, should occupy conspicuous situations
in the squares, and these latter should not be
small confined spaces like Sampson-square, but
they should be modelled after the largest squares
in London. The old Mansion-house should be
appropriated to some other purpose.

All the labouring classes of York ought to ap-
prentice their children to the trades of carpenters,
builders, and masons, and then when they had
learnt their craft in assisting to raise the numerous
buildings required in the City, they could carry
their labour and skill to other places where im-^
provements were going on, and especially to some
of Britain's best colonies.

York should be a city of carvers in wood, model-
makers (such as small models of public buildings,)
antiquarian shops, ancient hook sellers, picture
shops for oil paintings, print and map shops,
workers in ivory, gold, and jewellery ; coiners of
medals and imitators of ancient coins ; and any
process or trade that does not require a great
manufactory or create much smoke.

A stop should be put to the building of a parcel
of random streets and lanes outside the City-walls
all round ; and what are already built, together
with every detached house and cottage or other

90 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

building, should be pulled down and cleared away,
save and except such part of them as could be
enclosed within the proposed new walls; and
people should be compelled to build within the
walls and according to approved plans previously
printed on paper and made public in anticipation
of centuries to come : it utterly spoils the view of
a city as one approaches it, to see it environed on
every side by low, dirty, poor and mean habita-
tions and petty streets. No streets or lanes ought
to be suffered to be built within five miles of York
on any side.

A Park should be formed like a belt, half a mile
wide, of open grass land, entirely round the City,
cleared of large trees which might obstruct the
view, but planted with clusters of small shrubby
trees, the outer circumference of which should be
surrounded with ornamental villas and detached
cottages. No house or building of any kind
should be suffered to be erected within the half-
mile circumference, not near the outside of the
fortification-walls, under a penalty of 5,000Z. and
the building to be pulled down.

A penalty of lOOZ. should be inflicted on any
person who builds a room of a less size than fif-
teen feet square in any house or dwelling-place ;
and if there be more than one such room in any
house, an additional penalty of 601. for every such
other under-sized room, and the room or rooms to
be pulled down or enlarged.

Cavalry and Infantry Barracks, with stables for
twelve hundred horses (or two cavalry regiments)
should occupy a large space within the new quar-
ter, but close to some gateway or '* bar," which is

YOBK. 91

the fittest locality for a garrison. And instead of
keeping troops at Doncaster, York should be
made the grand dSpot and Head Quarters of the
Northern Division of the army, to consist of ten
regiments, horse and foot, artillery and sappers,
in due proportion, and the garrisons of Hull and
Liverpool should be furnished from thence, as
well as detachments to Manchester, Leeds, and
some other towns requiring protection from the
enemies of peace. How absurd it is, to make
Doncaster a military station, for no other reason
but because the Romans did !

Great exertions have been lately made at York
to revive the amusement of horse-racing ! — Oh,
that I had the tongue of eloquence that could dis-
suade the noblemen and gentlemen from pursuing
a recreation that causes so much sin and misery !
Cannot the breed of horses be improved and kept
up by some other means than by races ? I should
think it could. If noblemen who love these sports
would but consider the extensive mischief they
bring upon the thousands of poor, who are at-
tracted to the races, who quit their daily quiet
labours and spend three or four days in idleness,
drinking, cursing, and immorality of every kind,
unsettling their minds and bringing them in contact
with crowds of pick-pockets and bad characters
of every degree ; if the numbers of respectable
families who are injured or ruined by betting on
the horses could be knovm, the remorse, anguish^
the " hell-of-mind" felt by men who have brought
themselves and families from afBuence and hap-
piness to debt and wretchedness, I think that con-
science would whisper to them that it is not right.

}

1

\

t

92 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

and "what is not right must be wrong." I knew
a family of the highest respectability, whose head
and chief kept a number of racers : his expenses
and losses at races were at length the secret means
of forcing him into the gazette as a bankrupt, and
himself and his amiable and lovely wife and
young children were reduced to poverty, from
which they never rose again ! Races are cruel
and demoralizing : archery, on the contrary, is a
beautiful and ennobling amusement.

With the foregoing suggested improvements,
York would be the court-capital of the North of
England, a halfway capital between London and
Edinburgh, and a City that no one would omit
visiting in their progress North or South, East or
West. The nobility and gentry of the North of
England and especially of the county of York-
shire, should lay aside all family quarrels, party
spirit, and political differences, and come forward
with one united heart and mind, to the great ob-
ject of raising York to a first-class city, and em-
ploy the first architects of the age. There is no
lack of wealth, talent, or human beings, and these
three elements together, with a persevering and
praiseworthy enthusiasm in the cause, would soon
make York a second Munich, a Florence, or a
second Rome.*

* To keep up the character of an ancient gothic city, York
should have several colonnaded streets, that is, piazzas along the
two foot-pavements with gothic pointed arches, and small sky-
lights in the roof just over the shop windows.

I have seen one or two streets colonnaded their whole length on
both sides, in an ancient city in ruins, (the Hindoo city of
Bisnaghur.) The houses and pillars were built with stone, each
pillar a single stone, and still perfect, although deserted several

93

LEEDS.

The great branches of our national industry, while
they are instrumental in producing and diffusing
wealth, appear at first sight almost to involve the
moral and physical degradation of the numerous
masses of our working population, who are imme-
diately engaged therein ; and although a closer
examination will show that this is by no means
the case, we shall find that this class is un-
doubtedly suffering from evils of no common mag-
nitude. The chief palliation of the guilt of neglect
and delay in providing a remedy for the existing
evils, is to be found in the rapidity with which
they sprung forth. They had become of gigantic
stature before men were aware of their existence,
and then it seemed to be hopeless to contend with
them. The changes which have taken place in
the state of society in England during the present
century, were so different from the ordinary cir-
cumstances under which great social revolutions
take place, that men's attention was not suffi-
ciently directed to enquire into the new wants to
which they gave birth. Numbers were drawn to
the great seats of manufacturing industry from the
surrounding rural districts, and from more distant
quarters, as the demand for *' hands" became

hundred years. They were fancifully carved and painted, and the
view was picturesque, romantic and enchanting.

But letting alone gothic piazzas and Hindoo piazzas, only
imagine a fine wide and long street in an English town colonnaded
on both sides its whole length, with round fluted iron pillars like
the Quadrant at London ; can there be any earthly architectural
scene more ravishing, splendid, grand, and n ^nificent?

94 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

more urgent ; rows of cottages were hastily erected
for the accommodation of the immigrants, and to
provide for the demands of a rapidly increasing
population. In twenty or thirty years the popu-
lation of the towns which became the scene of
these changes was doubled, or perhaps trebled ;
but as for their physical, moral, and intellectual
improvement, the multitude of human beings thus
suddenly congregated on a given spot were in a
state of as much destitution as are some hundreds
of labourers employed for a few months on public
works, and who are temporarily occupying huts
erected close to the scene of their labours. One
great want, therefore, of the large towns of modern
growth is an improved municipal organization
directed to such objects of local interest as can be
successfully accomplished by local means. No
single remedy can be adapted to evils which
ramify into so many branches ; and though no one
can doubt the advantages which have been derived
from Sunday-schools, Savings' Banks, Mechanics'
Institutes, and Reading-rooms, yet the inefficiency
of these alone is now forced upon our conviction,
and we hope we are not mistaken in assuming
that the condition of the labouring population^ es-
pecially in the large towns, will soon be treated as
a whole^ and that a series of practical measures
wiH be devised for their benefit.

As an instance of the various means by which
the great object to be kept in view may be pro-
moted, we regard with much satisfaction the Act
of Parliament for enforcing a better system of
drainage in large towns. It is a step in the right
direction, and is avowedly taken with the object

LEEDS. 95

of directing attention to the condition of the
working classes of the town population, so that it
will naturally be followed by other plans of im-
provement, such as public walks, swimming tanks,
cemeteries, &c. A glance at one branch of the
evils which the new law is designed to remedy,
will at once prove its value and necessity. Our
facts are taken from the Report of a Statistical
Committee of the Leeds Town Council upon the
condition of that town and its inhabitants, which
contains information respecting the condition of
the surface and subways of the streets ; and we
are assured that the state of things therein de-
scribed will find a parallel in every one of our large
towns of similar size. In Leeds there are exten-
sive and populous districts without any sewers or
means of drainage, and filth of every kind accu-
mulates in masses and lodges in hollows on the
surface, until dissipated by the wind and sun«
There were, in 1839, three streets in Leeds con-
taining one hundred dwellings, and a population
of 452 persons, for whose accommodation there were
but two out-offices, neither of which was fit for use ;
and other parts of the town were in scarcely a
better condition. Some streets resemble a field
which has been cut up by loaded vehicles in wet
weather, and the inhabitants vainly attempt to
repair them with ashes, or other refiise. In whole
rows of cellar dwellings, the walls never cease to
drip with moisture ; and in some habitations of
this class the inhabitants have been awakened in
the night and found their beds literally floating. In
other cases, where there are sewers, the want of
arrangement amongst proprietors renders them

96 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

of little use. They become engorged, and pour
a flood of fetid matter into cellars and dwelling
rooms. Malaria then affects the inhabitants, and
Us influence is shown by the accelerated fatality
of disease in the district. In a case of this kind at
Leeds, it appeared that while in other parts of the
town there were only two deaths to three births !
the proportion in the flooded district was three
deaths to two births. Dr. Southwood Smith has
stated of the metropolis, that by taking a map of
the sewers, and tracing the course of fever, it
would be found to run in a directly inverse ratio
to the course of the sewers ; — where there were
sewers, there no fever would be found.

There are many other evils in the physical state
of towns besides those arising from deficient
drainage, but the reader may be spared for the
present the painful facts which show that large
portions of our industrious fellow countrymen are
habitually living amidst circumstances which
degrade and brutalize the character, and all but
extinguish the moral sense. It is more pleasing
to notice the fact that attention is awakened to
these evils, and the conviction is gaining ground
that they must be removed ere the work of moral,
religious, and intellectual improvement can com-
mence upon a just foundation. How, for example,
is it possible to give to individuals already
morally degraded, a sense, or a taste for domestic
comforts while they continue destitute of a home
worthy of the name ? — Or can it be surprising that
the damp and cheerless cellar, without a single
domestic convenience, should exercise a less
powerful influence and attraction thaa the gin-
shop or the beer shop ? Those who have had

LEEDS. 97

opportunities of learning the condition of the
working classes, have not failed to notice that
when a mechanic removes from a two-and-six-
penny cottage to a three-and-sixpenny cottage, a
corresponding moral improvement has been visible
in his conduct and deportment, and the man who
falls from a state of comfort into the hopeless de-^
gradation of a miserable cellar-dwelling, sinks too
often into a lower moral state as his physical con*
dition becomes depressed and unfavourable. Mn
Ashworth, the great manufacturer of Bolton, is so
strongly impressed with the influence of comfort-^
able habitations for the working classes upon their
moral character, that every successive range of
cottages erected by him for the last twenty years
has been rendered more expensive, and has been
more completely furnished with conveniencies
than the preceding lot ; and the best cottages are
at once the most expensive and the most sought
after by his own work people. In cottages of
this class new desires are experienced ; an e£fort
is made to purchase appropriate furniture, to
obtain which, orderly and sober habits are neces-
sary ; and cottages of this description encourage
such habits, for here the artizan can spend his
evenings in the enjoyment of domestic comforts,
and need not resort for excitement or recreation to
the beer shop.

The Act of Parliament before alluded to, is to
give the industrious classes a greater share of pub«
lie comfort and convenience. It will protect them
from the avarice and extortion of the owners of
small tenements ; for in many instances they, and
not the tenants, are to blame for the scandalous

H

98 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

violations of comfort and decency, which are
inevitable without this protection. While the
enquiry at Leeds was proceeding, a deputation of
women waited upon the Committee to beg an
immediate remedy for a nuisance in their neigh-
bourhood; but owing to the indefinite meaning of
the term " nuisance" in point of law, this object
could not be accomplished without great trouble
and expense ; and these impediments have in fact
been the protection of many a nuisance, while the
new law will go to the source of the evil. It may
also be regarded as an encouragement to owners of
tenements who are disposed to consult the comfort
and convenience of their tenants. At Leeds, " in
many instances, when the property of a street is
in many hands, one-half of them or more, origi-
nally completed their respective parts, as regards
paving and sewering, but the cupidity, obstinacy,
or poverty, or all combined, of the others, or even
of a single one, has prevented the improvement of
the whole.''

Lastly, the new law is one of justice to the
small rate-payers. In the Leeds Report it is
stated that /^ in a great measure the cottages are
rated as a part, and for the benefit of the whole
community ; but are mulcted of that proportion
which ought to carry clean pavement to their own
doors."*

I shall also just notice the pretty condition of
the river Aire, which runs through Leeds. In-
stead of being an ornament to the town, and a
minister of pleasures to its citizens, by boating,
swimming, and fishing, its banks are crowded and

* The Penny Magazine for March, 1841.

LEBDS. 99

shut up with buildings, and its waters are like a
reservoir of poison, carefully kept for the purpose
of breeding a pestilence in the town. In that part
of the river, extending from Armley mills to the
King's mills, it is charged with the drainage and
contents of about two hundred water-closets, cess-
pools, and privies, a great number of common
drains, the drainings from dung-hills, the infirmary,
(dead leeches, poultices for patients, &c.,) slaugh-
ter-houses, chemical soap, gas, drug, dye-houses,
and manufactures, spent blue and black dye, pig-
manure, old urine wash, with all sorts of dead
animal and vegetable substances, and now and
then a decomposed human body ; forming an
annual mass of filth equal to thirty millions of
gallons ! This was, until lately, the delicious
nectar, the delectable water that went to make
tea, to be carried to the lips of the beautiful young
ladies of Leeds, (and they are the loveliest girls in
the world) and to cook the victuals of the inhabi-
tants. But, although the town is now furnished
with purer water for every purpose, yet the con-
dition of the river remains the same, evolving a
diurnal exhalation of disease as regularly as the
sun rises in the heavens, and I am afraid it will
continue to do so until the better judgment of the
wealthy mill-owners prompts them to remove their
-factories and other buildings further down the
river, away from the town. It would be better for
the work-people to have to go half a mile out of the
town to their work in the mills and factories, than
to have the health and cleanliness of the town
spoilt by the factories being su£fered to be erected
in the town. And it is also better for people to

H 2

100 IMPROVEMENT OP TOWNS.

congregate and live together in cities and towns^
(away from the manufactories,) as the associating
of large numbers of people together, tends to
civilization and enlightenment, and breeds friend-
ships and mutual acts of benevolence.

With respect to the filth of a town, which may
be used as liquid manure, we xnight take a lesson
from the Parisians. A new contract was recently
signed at Paris, by which the contractor agreed to
give 22,000/. per annum for the contents of the
cess-pools of that city, which are at present de-
posited in a place in the suburbs, called Mon-
faucon ; but are about to be conveyed by a new
drain five miles further from the city. The
manure of such a city in England would be worth
five times the amount.*

It appears that something of the kind is about
to be efiected in Leeds, though on a very small
scale, by the proposed new seweraige. In my
humble judgment, the sewers and drains are all
too small for such a growing and increasing town as

* The following is a picture of Leeds, from a Leeds newspaper : —
*^ The pollutions of the atmosphere of the town by smoke, by the
steam of dye-houses, by the stifling fumes of many noxious pro*
cesses, and by the effluvia of whole districts of undrained streets,
is perhaps unequalled, certainly not surpassed by any other town
in England : the evil does not end in merely giving us a very black
and unwholesome air to breathe, but it seems as if the murky atmo-
sphere were considered an effectual veil to hide all sorts of slovenli-
ness in the condition of the streets, particularly in those which are
yet incomplete ; and even in some of the principal thoroughfares the
state of the pavement is disgraceful. But while public function-
aries plume themselves in saving large sums of money, (for the
purpose of attracting or securing popularity for electioneering pur-
poses,) we may hope in vain for any extensive improvements in this
dirty and stinking town/'

LEEDS. 101

Leeds ; and perhaps the next generation may re-
quire them all to he enlarged, at an enormous ex-
pense, and the trouhle and dirt of digging and
huilding to be all gone over again.

The following brief extracts from the Report of
Captain Vetch, of the Royal Engineers, on the
sewerage of Leeds, may be usefully inserted
here : —

** The primary and most important evils to be
removed, are the discharges of filth into the river,
by substituting main sewers in some degree paral-
lel to the course of the river. There is no room
for half measures. It is in vain to suppose that
the condition of the town can ever be materially
improved, till the river and the brooks are saved
from their present pollution ; but carrying to the
full extent the principles proposed, there is no
reason whatever why this town should not become
as clean and wholesome as any manufacturing town
in England ; it has many natural advantages,
which can be turned to good account ; but all the
interior and surface drainage, paving, and flag-
ging, and other secondary means of improvement,
will be of minor importance compared to the great
benefit resulting from the construction of main
sewers to serve in place of the river.'*

It is proposed to construct four principal sewers
as follows : —

1. North Main Sewer, along the north side of
the river (from the outlet in Thorp Pool to the
junction with Addle Brook.)

2. Addle Brook Sewer, from the junction in
Marsh-lane to the head of the drain near the Oil
Mill at Sheepscar.

102 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

3. West Sewer, from the junction with Addle
Brook to the junction of the Wellington and Kirk-
stall roads, near Wellington Bridge.

4. South Main Sewer, along the south side of
the river, (from Haigh Park to Leeds Bridge, in-
cluding the suburbs of Hunslet and Holbeck, with
principal branch sewers,)

Estimate of North Main Sewer,
yds. Knks.
935,0 yards of open cut,^ 4 yards wide by 2 deep,

from outlet in Thorp Pool towards Knos-
trop Hall, at 3s, 4d. per lineal yard • £249 6 8
1458.6 yards of covered drain, of walled stone, in-
cluding excavation, from open cut to tun-
nel in East-street, at 2/. 5s. per lineal yard 3281 17
330.0 yards of covered drain, inserted by means of
tunneling, in East-street, at 4^. 58. per
lineal yard , . . • 1402 10

279.4 yards of covered drain, to the point of junc-
tion of the Addle Brook and West drains,
at 21. 5s. per lineal yard . . 628 12 6

£5562 6 2
Contingencies, one-tenth . 556 4 7

£6U8 10 9

Estimate of Addle Brook Sewer,

114.40 yards, from junction of main trunk to Marsh-lane;
1 198,56 yards, from Marsh-lane to head of the drain near

the Oil Mill.

1312.96 yards of covered drain, 8 feet by 8, at 21. 5s.

per lineal yard • .t . . £2953 3 2

Iron pipes along course of Old Beck, and

sundry work there . . , 1465 4

4418 7 2
Contingencies, one-tenth . 441 16 8

£4860 3 10

LEEDS.

103

Estimate of West Sewer,

yds. Iks.

438.46 yards of covered drain, 8 feet by 4 at one

end, and 6 feet by 4 at the other end, at

1/. 12s. 6d. per lineal yard
154.00 yards of covered drain, inserted by tunneling

in the Calls, 6 feet by 4, at 2/. Os. 6d, per

lineal yard . • . .

528.8 yards of covered drain, from the Calls to

Bishopgate*street, 6 feet by 4, at 1/. ]«.

per lineal yard
330.0 yards of covered drain, inserted by tunneling

in Wellington-street, 6 feet by 4, at

2/. Os. 6d, per lineal yard
451.0 yards of covered drain in Wellington-street,

6 feet by 4 at one end, and 4 feet by 3 at

the other, at I85. 6d. per lineal yard
523.6 yards of covered drain in Wellington-street,

4 feet by 3, at 16s, per lineal yard

Contingencies, one- tenth

£712 9 11

311 17

552 1 9

668 5

416 13

419

17

7

3080

4

3

398

8

5

£4382 12 5

Estimate of South Main Sewer.

1760.0 yards of open cut drain through Haigh Park,
3 yards wide by 2 deep, at 4s. per lineal
yard . • • . .

2235.2 yards of covered drain, 6 feet by 6, from
Thwaite's Gate to Albert-street

Contingencies, one-tenth

352

. 3632

4

3984

4

398

8

5

£4382 12 5

104

IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

Estimate of the Principal Branch Sewers on South side qf the

River.
yds. Iks.
707.3 yards of 1st class sewer from Albert- street to

Leeds Old Bridge, at 15s. per lineal yard £530 9 6

1854.6 yards of 1st clasl^ sewer. Sweet-street Wne, at

15s. per lineal yard . . . 1390 19

1305.7 yards of 1st class sewer, little Holbeck line,

at 15s. per lineal yard • • • 979 5 6

847.0 yards of 1st class sewer. Great Holbeck line,

at 15s. per lineal yard « « « 635 5

Contingencies, one-tenth

3535 19
353 11 11

X3889 10 11

Summary of Estimates,

North Main Sewer
Addle Brook Sewer
West Main Sewer
South Main Sewer

Total of Main Sewers
Principal Branch Sewers, South side of River

. £6118

10

9

. 4860

3

. 3388

4

8

. 4382

12

5

. 18749

10

10

. 3889

10

11

£22,639

1

9

Cost of Tanks or Catch-pits for manure, may be estimated at
£750, for each side of the river.

From the researches into agricultural chemistry,
and from the usages of other countries, the value
of the manure, estimated according to the popu-
lation, may reach to 10,000Z. a-year, in the course
of ten years ; such a circumstance alone, would
demonstrate the bad policy of sending so much
fertilizing matter to the river, where it is not only

LEEDS. 105

lost, but actually becomes the source of many
diseases and disagreeables.

The improvements would probably require
30,000^., and a rate of only one penny in the
pound would more than suffice to pay the interest
of this sum, until the value of the manure came to
redeem the principal.

This dociunent is dated SUt December, 1842.

As soon as these improvements are completed,
and the river rendered sweet, the inhabitants
should have it dug deeper all through, from one
side of the town to the other, abolish all the
buildings on its banks, on both sides, throw the
banks open to the public, by forming river-streets
open to the water, plant them with ornamental
standard trees, form flights of stone steps down to-
the water at regular distances, and erect a low
balustrade from one flight of steps to the next,
and from that to th^ next flight, and so on all
through the town along both margins of the river ;
and the water being once more habitable for fish,
they should be preserved, and they in return would
preserve the water clear and sweet, and it would
be a delightful lake for rowing and sailing plea-
sure-boats, and the walks on both sides would be
as enchanting and as much resorted to as such
places usually are in some of the southern foreign
cities. Depend upon it, neither the shopkeeper
nor the artizan, any more than the wealthy mer-
chant or man out of business, would ever regret
the accomplishment of such striking and beautiful
alterations in this, at present, most disagreeable,
ugly, and filthy town.

106 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

When I visited Leeds, I must confess I was
astonished at the filthiness of the town, and the
glaring apathy and neglect that was observable
in the building-schemes that were carrying on,
especially in the North and West quarters, where
upwards of two dozen little new streets, or at-
tempts at new streets, are run up in all manner of
directions, without any regular plan or imaginable
motive but to create confusion or a labyrinth,
amidst holes and hillocks, ponds and puddles, and
mud a yard deep.

Many respectable houses in this town have no
gardens nor even back courts, nor scarcely a foot
of ground attached to them except a little tiny
front court enclosed with an iron-railing ; and yet
great rents were demanded for these suicidal pri-
sons (and they deserve no better name), for who-
ever takes such houses, must submit to linger out
life without one of its principal enjoyments, a spot
of shrubbery and fresh air ; and to be retired, it
should be at the back of the house. The houses
in Rockingham - street, Coburg - street. Queen-
square, and every other street and square in the
town might have had, and ought to have had, back
gardens, a morsel larger than their present ones,
if they had been built by considerate, liberal-
minded and humane men, who remembered they
were building habitations for human beings and
not cages for beasts. I went to Leeds with the
full determination of taking a house and estab-
lishing myself there, but I quitted the town in dis- .
gust.

The pavement of Leeds is in a most shameful

LEEDS. 107

state throughout ; the stones are laid so unequally
that they are destructive to carriages and cattle,
and cannot be passed over without danger and
discomfort to those who are riding or driving ;
witness Briggate, Commercial-street, Boar-lane,
Park-square, Byron-street, Skinner-lane, the Ley-
lands, Mabgate, Little London, Camp-road ; and
Wellington-lane and Hanover-street at the West
end of the town : no one can ride along these
smaller streets without actual danger. It is to be
hoped that the carriage-ways and foot-ways of all
these streets will be set to rights by the Improve-
ment Commissioners, and that they will also put a
stop to the nuisance of hanging clothes across
them to dry.

On market day, nearly the whole of Briggate,
the only wide street in the town, was lined with
fruit stalls and sheds for the sale of various arti-
cles : this is a most intolerable nuisance, and it is
a culpable neglect in the authorities of the town,
who have the power of ordering such matters, to
let the street and the foot-pavement be thus in-
truded upon and obstructed by stalls, to the an-
noyance of foot-passengers, who can scarcely
make their way through the crowds of idlers, who
stand gaping and staring, or saunter up and down,
and care not whose business they mar and hinder
by their stupid practices. How much cleaner and
healthier Briggate-street might be kept, if there
were two or three large square pieces of ground
opened somewhere in the town for markets for all
kinds of eatables, and stalls for every description
of ware. Is Leeds so poor a place that the in-

108 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

habitants cannot form a company to build three
or four covered market-places for meat, fish, fowl,
vegetables, fruit, and fire- wood ?

The builders in this town run up their rows of
houses and little narrow streets before they ever
consider how such streets or houses are to be
drained, paved, cess-pooled, supplied with water,
or got to from the other streets, except by wading
between deep ruts full of water ! Why, one would
think that common sense would whisper to a land-
lord or builder the absolute necessity of forming
good and substantial drains at some time or other,
sooner or later, to carry off accumulated waters,
and it could be better done before the houses are
run up, and before they are encumbered with in-
habitants, rather than let the latter live amidst
mud and slush, and wade ankle-deep to their
homes for four or five years to come, to the great
injury of their health, their beauty, and their
comforts.

Such a reckless custom of building should be
stopped by the strong arm of an act of parliament
to regulate the building of a street, which law
should be so worded as to contemplate and pro-
vide rules for the building of a single house, the
same as if the said single house were the first of
an intended street. The avarice and inhumanity
of dabblers in bricks and mortar require to be
placed under restraint and regulation, as much as
anything I know of in the world.

A new principle in laying down the direction of
new streets and altering old ones, should be
adopted, and be a standing order for ever; for
whereas, at present, when an old street is to be

LEEDS. 109

widened, a few houses are thrown back here and
there, and no regard is had to making the street
straight. Now, in widening a narrow street, the
two objects of widening and making the street
perfectly straight should invariably go together,
and be inseparable ; and for this object, lay down
an imaginary centre-line from one end of the old
street to the other end or intended end, (never
mind its cutting through any number of houses,)
and call the imaginary line the centre-line of the
street, and say the line of foot-pavement on each
side shall be thirty feet from the centre, or forty
feet from the centre, if it be intended to be a very
wide street, and then from time to time, and from
one period to another, as the several houses get
old and ruinous, they must come down according
to law, and be rebuilt on the new line of houses,
outside the foot-pavement.

Thus, in about one hundred years, every town
in the kingdom would be made convenient, hand-*
some, cleanly, and healthy, merely by the re-
generation of their filthy, narrow, crooked, and
sickly-looking streets.

Church-lane should be widened, and carried in
a direct straight line through the lanes and alleys
and blocks of cottages, to a junction with Skinner^
lane, and in process of time it would grow into a
fine street, and thus bring St. Peter's Church al-
most to the doors of a population who are now lost
in a labyrinth.

North-street and Vicar-lane should be carried
straight down to the river Aire, and widened the
whole way to at least twenty-six yards in width :

110 IMPROVEMEl^T OF TOWNS.

this would then be a noble and useful thoroughfare
to that populous part of the town.

Park-row should be carried in a direct straight
line to Woodhouse-lane before any buildings are
erected on the ground to hinder it ; and then, by
the removal of two or three buildings join it to
Neville-street and it would form united a fine
street nearly a mile in length, very useful to the
western parts of Leeds.

It would be a great improvement to widen Brig-
gate down to the bridge and from thence to the
station of the North Midland Railway. Again,
Briggate should be extended and prolonged on to
Camp-road in a wide straight street, and then in
process of time, every ofF-set street on the right
and left of this great street (Briggate) should be
made to open into it. A few more good open
squares of genteel private houses should be erected
in the eastern parts of the town to improve that
neighbourhood, and the streets of the industrious
classes be laid with substantial granite pavements
and kept a little more tidy and wholesome.

Go round and round again, outside the town of
Leeds, and a stranger will look in vain for those
extensive plots of garden-ground for the use of
the operative classes which he sees outside many
other towns, and yet Leeds is situated in the
midst of a country so diversified and so well
watered, that it might be converted into an earthly
paradise, and be surrounded with one blaze of
apple trees and other fruits and rose trees and
other flowers ; and instead of endeavouring to
attract the multitude to the Zoological and Bota*
nical Garden by a parcel of expensive wild beasts

LEEDS. Ill

and shows, and exhibitions of fireworks, give the
people a taste for and the knowledge how, to
cultivate and enjoy gardens of their own, where they
might grow potatoes for their winter supper (for a
roast potatoe is a capital supper) and lettuces,
onions, and small salad for their summer supper,
which they would not eat with less appetite for
having walked out of a noisy factory or mill, into
a sweet little quiet garden at the edge of the
town. All the fields round the town on every side
and immediately contiguous to the houses, should
be divided into about twenty thousand squares, of
a rood each, not divided by walls but by paths,
and every citizen should be compelled to hire a
rood of ground for a garden or pay a tax for
exemption.

The Botanical Garden should be kept up,
entirely for scientific purposes, and with a first
and second gardener, at forty pounds a-year wages
each, would reduce the expense to the subscribers
to a mere trifle ; for excepting seed and manure
there would be no other expense or waste of
money. And send the wild beasts to Jericho;
there are too many of these devouring animals in
England, and it is lamentable to see the quantity
of good food they consume, whilst thousands of
poor people can scarcely earn their dinner. One
Zoological Garden for all England is quite enough,
and that ought to be at the metropolis ; all others
ought to be abolished by law.

And as for the exhibition of fireworks and bands
of music, they are amusements only fit for public
tea-gardens and taverns, but I regard it as a prosti-
tution of a Botanical Garden to unworthy purposes,

112 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

to have such displays there ; for if people will not
go to the garden for its own sake, it is so much
the better for those who love a quiet place of
retirement and who go there for air and exercise,
and meet with more select visitors in consequence.

There is a nursery-garden of fifty acres in ex-
tent not far from Coggeshall in Essex (if not sold
and broken up, of which there was said to be
some intention) where almost all the trees and
plants of the various climates of the world were
cultivated and flourishing in health, including a
tall cocoa-nut tree in a lofty hot-house. I merely
mention the circumstance to shew» what might be
done in Botanical Gardens provided they were kept
up with spirit and for scientific purposes: and
when the great importance of medical botany is
considered, it is to be hoped that more attention
will be paid to the true uses of Botanical Gardens,
and that money be no longer wasted on objects
foreign to those uses.

The whole of that piece of ground consisting
of fields and building-ground, bounded by Wel-
lington-street on the North, Park-mills on the
West, Monk Pits-street on the East, and the river
Aire on the South, should be purchased by the
corporation and formed into a park, or what it is
still better calculated for, into gardens for the
industrial classes. It is admirably situated for
the latter object, being so close to the town and so
convenient to water. The cost may amount to a
good deal, but if the circumstance of the increas-
ing population and the continual enlargement of
the town be considered, a wiser step could scarcely
be taken than to secure it for ever.

LEEDS. 113

But liceds ought to have a park of one hundred
acres, and the very best situation for one, is about
a quarter of a mile to the north-east of Burman-
toss. Here is both high land and low levels, with
no less than three water-courses, or brooks or
rills, offering every capability of being studded
with groves, walks, plantations, and ponds by
banking up the rills. It would be a wonderful
improvement to the East end of the town.

Three hundred acres on Woodhouse Moor should
also be secured for ever for the manoeuvring of
troops.

An opening should be made from York-street
into Kirkgate by prolonging the former in a
straight line to the latter ; and it should be of
a good width.

The street called Swinegate (what a genteel
name !) is undergoing the operation of increasing
its width, but it is not being widened half enough;
and the best operation that could be performed
upon it, would be, to sweep the whole place from
the face of the earth : no alteration can improve
it, it is such an inconvenient and ill-planned part
of the town.

Wellington -street, as drawn in the plan of the
town, appears to be a handsome, straight, long
and wide street. It should be carried on in a
straight line through Quebec to the south end of
the White Cloth Hall and thence to the south side
of St. Peter's Church, and terminate on the East
side of the town : this would be a very useful
improvement and be a direct passage through the
South part of the town from East to West, at the
same time that it would make one of the finest

114 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

Streets for length, widths and straightness,
next to Briggate (which it would cross) in the
town.

All the new roads and new streets suggested by
Mr. Fowler and dotted on a plan of the town
printed since 1826, are judiciously laid down, yet
none of them have been executed as yet, as far as
I could learn.

I am glad to see the authorities of the town have
ordered that a building recently erected by some
one, in Union-row, Quarry-hill, contrary to the
Improvement Act, should be levelled ; and that
they have also ordered the surveying, and if need-
ful, taking down, a house dangerous to people's
lives from want of repair or age, in Albion-street.
A little discipline of this kind will do a great deal
of good, and teach people to keep their houses in
decent trim and prevent builders in future from
spoiling a town by ill-placed buildings.

A great improvement might be made in East-
street, from the comer next the Palace Inn, to the
issuing of the Beck beyond the road leading to
the Crown Point Bridge : it would be a great
public advantage, and could be effected now at
much less expense than if deferred to another
period.

At some future time a great thoroughfare will
be found to be necessary from East to West in the
northern parts of Leeds, and it would be wise to
begin early and provide a grand wide street for
that purpose. The best line that at present offers
for its formation is Park-lane, Guilford-street,
Upper Head-row, Lower Head-row, and Lady-
lane ; and thus form a junction with Quarry-hill.

LEEDS. 115

This grand thoroughfare should be thirty yards
wide throughout.

Heavy complaints are made of the crowded state
of the Free Market, and it is to be hoped that the
Improvement Commissioners will be induced to
take measures for the enlargement thereof. A
majority of the pigs in the market come down
Quarry -hill, and have to be driven up George's-
street. An entrance might be made from Mill-
Gath, by pulling down the cottages between that
place and the present Pig-market ; also by pulling
down the houses at the North end of the Boot and
Shoe-yard, and adding a great part of Mr, Smith's
yard thereto; also Mill Garth to Mr. Hargreave's
mill. Perhaps, the rate at which the additional
space would let, might make it a good commercial
speculation, in addition to better accommodation
to the market people. If this improvement can-
not be effected, another and more spacious site
should be provided for a Free Market in another
quarter of the township ; but horned cattle should
be once, and for ever interdicted from entering the
town at any time.

HALIFAX.

The town of Halifax, in Yorkshire, although not
so dirty as Leeds, yet possesses several small bye-
streets and lanes, so shabby and filthy, that they
would look quite natural if they were transplanted
to the worst purlieus of old Drury ; but as Halifax
is an ancient town, we must not quarreLwitb the

I 2

116 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

relics of times, when regularity of plans, and utility,
health, comfort, convenience, and beauty in build-
ing of streets, were things as far from the thoughts
of men as was the invention of locomotive car-
riages : the wealth of the inhabitants too, was not
perhaps a ten-thousandth part of what it is now.
All that we can do is to amend the faults of our
ancestors, and to act for the future upon a wiser
code of plan-drawing.

There is not at present a more opulent town in
England than Halifax, for its size and population ;
nor a town more capable of receiving improve-
ment, or that more wants it. A number of little
pitiful new streets have sprung up within these
few years, in different quarters of the town, in the
most irregular situations, and in some respects
annoying to the inhabitants themselves, by their
having blocked up some thoroughfares and short
cuts to different places. I have, myself, gone up
one or two of the new streets, and have been called
out to by some good woman — " There is no pas-
sage that way. Sir ; you must return, and go down
that lane, then turn to the right into a lane, at the
top of which you will come to a street, at the
bottom of which you will get into the street you
want."

Halifax is a mass of little, miserable, narrow,
ill-looking streets, jumbled together in chaotic
confusion, as if they had all been in a sack, and
emptied out together upon the ground, one rolling
this way, another rolling that way, and each stand-
ing where chance happened to throw it : there is
not one handsome or long street in the town, and
the cause of this is the want of previously survey-

HALIFAX. 117

ing the ground for the town, and properly laying
out the ground-plans of convenient and noble
streets upon paper, and that not merely for one
street, but for scores of future streets, which may
be wanted for the next two or three hundred
years.

As the town lies upon a slope it is easily
drained of the waters from heavy rains and thaws
of snow ; but woe to ladies' dresses, in the narrow
streets, and on the still narrower foot-pavements on
each side ; for, although the carriage-ways are all
paved with stones, yet for mud and slush I will
match them against the worst streets of ancient
London, and this is owing to their narrowness and
the great traffic in them.

There is not one handsome shop in all the town,
and yet it is said that the people of Halifax think
of nothing else but money-getting. How can they
expect to get money without some attention to
outward show and attraction?

There have been lately erected several good-look-
ing buildings, such as the Infirmary, the Museum,
two or three new churches, the Northgate Hotel,
and the Odd Fellows' Hall, the latter being by
far the handsomest edifice in the town ; but this
and all the other new buildings are unaccount-
ably placed in some bye-lane, as if studiously
selected to hide them from the sight of travellers
passing through the town, and where they are
seldom seen but by the few neighbours living near
them ; and certainly no stranger would ever think
of looking for them where they are placed. It
was by chance that I discovered the Odd Fellows'
Hall, and the Roman Catholic Church. The Peace

118 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

Hall, a large quadrangular building, open in the
centre, is perhaps one of the most curious and
oriental piles in England; but it is completely
hidden from public view by houses, nearly on all
sides, and indeed its exterior is scarcely worth
being seen. The interior is so strikingly like a
caravansarai, that I could almost have fancied
myself back in India the first time I saw it. I have
more than once lodged a night in an immense open
choultry exactly like it, in my travels in the East.
I propose to point out a few alterations, which,
if executed, would make Halifax a charming town ;
and, although it is not to be expected that all
could be done at once, yet if the general ground-
plan was first engraved on paper, and in the hands
of proprietors of property, portions of the improve-
ments could be accomplished from time to time,
according as funds were raised by shares, capital-
ists, and loans ; and many proprietors of freehold
property would rebuild new houses agreeably to the
plan, when their old houses became so decayed
with age as not to make much difierence in the
expense of removing the site or erecting new. I
have been made aware of the very illiberal spirit
and selfish feelings of one or two individuals who
refused to sell their houses except for most exor-
bitant prices, for the purpose of throwing back the
said houses, in order to widen a street: such
people are to be found in every town ; and there-
fore, where a generous public spirit is wanting, it
should be bribed into compliance by conceding
their claims ; and if their foreheads can bear the
exposure of extortion they are quite welcome.
Owners of property should never be paid less than

. HALIFAX. 119

what they gave for their property, if it be thought
reasonable by competent judges. To pay a man
less for his field or his house than what he gave for
it, and at the same time compel him to sell it at
such lower value, would be the way to ruin him,
and be a gross act of tyranny ; but such is scarcely
ever the case in public improvements, and I be-
lieve that private interests generally gain some-
thing on these occasions. Improvements in
country towns are frequently opposed by people
from motives that they dare not name or avow ;
but the secret is religious hatred, or party spirit.

There are three principal entrances into Halifax,
viz., the first from London, vi4 Huddersfield, Shaw
Syke, South Parade, and Church-street. Church-
street should be extended in a straight line to
Shaw Syke, and widened to the width of twenty-
six yards the whole length, that is, a width of
twenty yards for carriage-way, and three yards on
each side for foot-pavements. The slip of land
required for this purpose, either on one or both
sides the road, should be purchased by the public
now, before any more houses are erected, and then
it will be an eligible road to build upon, or to form
a street of shops, for many hundred years to come.
The second entrance into Halifax is from the West ;
vi4 King-Cross-lane, and King-Cross-street. The
third entrance is from the North ; vi4 Leeds and
Bradford.

King-Cross-Street might be continued in nearly
a straight line completely through the town, down
to the venerable gothic cathedral-looking St. John's
Church ; and it would form as beautiful a street
as any to be found in the country towns. This

120 IMPROVEMENT OP TOWNS.

could be effected by the purchase and removal of
a few houses, and the exchange of the old ^tes
with the owners for new sites, and I think no per-
son would be a loser either in his pocket or in
his business. This new wide street would take in
all King-Cross-Street and Bull-green, the south
side of which latter would have to come down to
widen it, and bring it in a line with the south side
of George-street ; the north side of George-street
w^ould also have to come down, and be rebuilt
further back, so as to be in a line with the north
side of Cheapside-street ; the south sides of Cheapr
side and Russel streets would have to come down,
and be rebuilt in a line with the south side of
George-street : the new street might be carried on
from thence, either by throwing back the south
sides of Woolshops-street and King-street, or run-
ning it along the back of those two streets, and
thence along the Causeway and the north side of
the church-yard, to a handsome new bridge, to be
erected there across the valley, on a level with the
surface of the church-yard. The blocks of miser-
able cottages in that neighbourhood being removed,
the church -yard might be widened on that side as
much as might be necessary, to join it to the new
street. The new street should be twenty-six yards
wide at its narrowest spot, including three yards
of foot-pavement on each side. This alteration
alone would make Halifax a respectable town, and
handsome buildings might be reared from time to
time, in the course of different generations ; but I
have to propose three cross streets, to intersect the
grand long street at right angles. The first is, to
join Northgate to Market-street in a straight line.

HALIFAX. 12t

by wideniag the east side of the former, from the

Unitarian Chapel (opposite the Northgate Hotel)
to the corner of Woolshop-street, and a few
houses at the end of Market- street, and extending
the same street and Union-street in a direct
straight line down to Shaw Syke; the whole
street to be twenty-six or thirty yards wide at its-
narrowest part. This street would cut through
some private fields and a shrubbery at Hope-
house, which, for any other purpose, would be to
be regretted ; but perhaps the patriotic owner of
that property would never raise an objection to
any great pubtic improvement or extension of
plans, which would confer a lasting benefit upon
the town, and endure for ages after the local
affections for particular places had been laid in the
grave.

The second cross street or intersection is to join
Cabbage-lane to Harrison-lane, in a straight line,
by widening Cow-green and Barum-top on their
East sides, and all the ends of petty streets and
blocks of houses on the same side, and continuing
Harrisonlane in a straight line a mile further
to the South ; the width of the street should be
twenty-six yards.

The third intersecting street is, to lay out an
entire new street, a little to the Eastward of the
new Poor-house, and to extend one mile each way,
due North and South from that building as a
centre; this street to run parallel with Cabbage?
lane and Harrison-lane, and be twenty-six yards
wide.

The foregoing three divisions of the town would
enable all the smaller streets to be improved in

122 IMPROVEMENT OT TOWNS.

due time, and lengthened to join one or other
of the grand intersecting streets ; as many of the
houses are even now ready to tumble down with age,
so that numbers of the inhabitants would remove
from them to the wide and cheerful new streets ; and
for every two old houses so vacated, there should be
one new one erected in their place, and on improved
plans and dimensions ; and proceeding in this
course, it would leave nothing to be desired.

It is upon these principles that the London im-
provements have been conducted ; the widening,
joining, and straightening of the great arteries for
the more easy circulation of human beings, brings
people from distant parts of a town closer together,
by rendering access to each other easier, acts as a
thread to a labyrinth, and makes people's resi-
dences easier to find. It is also useful to visitors
and foreigners, who find it difficult to grope their
way about a town full of small streets where there
are not some main thoroughfares to guide them.

The two minor streets, Carlton-street and
Horton-street, might also be very easily joined
together in a straight line, and make one handsome
street; there is but one building in the way of
this union ; and Carlton-street might be continued
straight to West Parade. Mount-street might be
prolonged Westward to join the proposed new
Poor House-street, or third cross street. North
Parade-street might also be prolonged Westward
to join the proposed third cross street. Another
street might be laid out parallel to North Parade,
and extend from Cross-hills, or Bowling Dykes,
Westward to the proposed third cross-street,
making Stannary-lane part of it. And on the

HALIFAX. 123

south-side of the town a new street might be laid
out from Shaw Syke in a straight line to join the
proposed new third cross street a little south of
Savile Hall. All these streets should be straight,
and twenty -six yards wide, and the plan being once
published and known, builders should be obliged
to conform to it for ever.

A gallery for pictures and a Royal Exchange
might be built on the north side of Woolshop-
street, directly opposite the Peace Hall, forming
with that building two sides of a capacious square,
for as the latter building is almost always under
lock and key, it cannot be used as an Exchange
by the foreigners and strangers who come to
Halifax ; and the other two sides of the square
might be formed into Piazzas and bazar-shops ;
for a covered walk is much wanted in Halifax, as
also a new and larger Magistrates' OflSice, a new
theatre, and a new jail ; the latter should stand
in a more airy situation and contiguous to the
Court-House, wherever that may may be built.

The custom of allowing cattle and pigs to stand
in the streets on market days, blocking up the
thoroughfares and endangering people's lives,
ought to be abolished throughout the empire by
an Act of the Legislature. At Colchester, I have
frequently seen groups of women flying in all
directions from the worried animals in the High-
street. There ought to be a field full of pens for
cattle, pigs, and sheep, outside the town, and not
within the town : cattle should not be permitted to
be driven into a town at any time.

The mountain called Law-hill that immediately
overlooks the town of Halifax, is also sadly

124 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

neglected; it is not much better in appearance
than a wild bleak moor from top to bottom, with
a small black stunted wood in one spot, and a few
cottages near its base. Now this very mountain,
(I mean only that face of it seen from the town)
might be made one of the principal objects of
attraction, delight, amusement, and scenery, to
Halifax, and indeed to the neighbourhood for two
or three miles around. In the hands of a Hindoo
community, this hill would be the principal lion
of the place, and attract strangers from all parts
of England to see it ; they would have studded
its capacious side with pagodas, swamy-houses,
temples of all shapes, choultries, and hermitages
for fakeers and devotees ; they would have scarped
away the soil or the rock in innumerable places
for small level areas for these buildings, and
thousands of zig-zag footpaths would traverse
the side of the hill in all directions to their
romantic little temples, branching off from some
main ascent up the hill. I have seen just such
a mountain in several places in India, studded
exactly as I have described, many of the temples
consisting only of a single room, ten feet or fifteen
feet square, some lofty, some low, some open,
some enclosed ; some shaded by trees, others
exposed to the full blaze of an Eastern sun, all
built with hewn stone and mortar, or brick and
chunam, most of them whitened outside, many of
a stone colour, and many more painted tastefully
or fantastically in compartments and pannels of
red and grey. On occasions of Hindoo festivals,
when the town below is crowded with people, the
side of the hill will swarm with thousands of the

HALIFAX. 125

neighbouring inhabitants going up and coming
down, some having ascended to feast their eyes on
what is passing in the town, others to leave an
offering of rice at some little diminutive temple on
the hill side. And at night, the whole hill will
seem illuminated by the numerous oil lamps
(made of earthenware, like saucers, and containing
coco-nut oil, and a wick of cotton thread,) placed
in the innumerable little buildings, so that night
or day, for many days together, the whole place
will appear to a stranger like a disturbed ant-hill,
all in motion^ running wild with pleasure, and yet
not a single case of inebriety. And then Hindoo
music is heard in all places, the tamtams, the
collory horns, drones, trumpets, clarionets, cym-
bals, tambours, flutes, whistles, &c., &c. A pro-
cession of the idol proceeds all round the town by
day, accompanied by troops of dancers and music,
and by nearly half the population, who shout at
intervals the name of the idol, while guns are
fired by such of the mob as can afford a fowling
piece, matchlock, or pistol ; the same procession
occurs again at night, and continues nearly all
night, lighted by a number of flambeaus, (made of
cotton rags rolled round a stick, and fed with oil
by the hand.) Wherever there is a hill near a
Hindoo town, it is made subservient to their
romantic habits, their delightful religious festi-
vals, and their numerous holidays ; - while, on the
contrary, the civilized English know not what
pleasure is, (unless it be drunkenness,) nor ro-
mance, nor scenery either.

The miserable climate of England may be some
excuse for this, yet even the hill of Halifax might

126 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

be adorned and decorated with appropriate little
cottages, payilions, kiosks, summer-houses, tem-
ples, tea and cofiee canteens, sycamore groves, and
long alleys, suitable to the miserable climate. It
would be well if the English would throw off the
phlegmatic, cold, calculating, money-saving habits
they seem so fond of, and join together with a
little more generous public spirit in local enter-
prises, uniting pleasure with schemes for improve-
ment.

I am no advocate for Zoological Gardens ; there
are too many in the kingdom already, and it is
painful to think what a quantity of good food is
given to wild beasts, while so many thousands
of our fellow-creatures know not where to get a
dinner and have not employment to earn one :
but I am a strong advocate for a large Botanical
Garden uniting within it, the fruit, flower, veget-
able, and pleasure garden and park ; a.nd fifty acres
laid out as such, for the use of the public, to
the northward of, and in the neighbourhood of the
Halifax New Poor-house, would be a great good
to the town, and to the well-conducted and indus^
trious classes of society especially. A fine garden
with beautiful broad gravel walks overshadowed
and lined with lovely standard apple trees on each
side loaded with rosy^ fruit, might make many a
happy couple fancy themselves in Paradise, and
taste of the forbidden fruit by paying two. pence
or three pence, the rule beings to eat as much as you
darey hut pocket none ; and it would be a near, a
rational, and a healthy place of resort for all
classes.

The foregoing suggested improvements of the

HALIFAX. 127

Streets of Halifax, do not look so well, traced upon
paper over the old plan, as they would look in
nature. I have walked over the ground and ma-
tured the plans on the spot, and I am as sure of
the possibility of their execution and of their
utility, as I am of the regrets that a distant
generation will express, that we, their ancestors,
did not fulfil them. I am told that the population
of the parish now amouiits to one hundred and
ten thousand souls, and will double that number
in a few years ; it is therefore worth while to make
the town attractive by a twofold measure, that of
building it upon some regular and established
plan, and at the same time providing for a vast
increase of inhabitants;

If cities were always built in the first instance
from regular plans traced upon paper with wisdom
and taste, each house might have a rood or half a
rood of ground behind it, which would add greatly
to the health and convenience of its inmates, and
in some countries also gives a delightful aspect to
a city. Some cities in the East seem as if they
were planted in a garden : Norwich, in England, is
one of this sort, and it looks beautiful, from what-
ever quarter viewed. But it is to be lamented
that in most ancient towns there are hundreds of
houses that cannot have a breath of air at the
back, and consequently the smoke from surround-
ing chimneys enters the rooms and remains in
them in a stagnated state, exceedingly trying to
the lungs of the inhabitants. It is not too late to
begin a reform in the plans of towns and houses :
thousands of ancient streets and houses are natur^
ally crumbling with age and will fall down if they

128 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

are not pulled down : the object should be, to
rebuild according to approved plans : much has
been done in some towns and the results have
been very satisfactory to the inhabitants, and an
encouragement to go on and prosper. Let it not
be said that there is a want of money, or a want of
land, or a want of labourers : one noble-minded
individual at Newcastle has done twice as much
for that town and with his own single fortune, and,
as might be expected, it made him richer than
ever. I believe that there are ten wealthy indivi-
duals in the parish of Halifax for one at New-
castle, but they require the subject to be brought
to their notice ; mercantile affairs have hitherto
occupied their attention and time, it is to be hoped
there will be found neither a want of will nor a
want of energy to set some improvements a-going ;
time, patience, and perseverance will conquer all
obstacles, and whatever is done for the benefit of
human beings and done with a good spirit, may
generally count upon the blessing of Divine Pro-
vidence.

MANCHESTER.

Manchester, although a modern town, is full of
faults. In one or two of the streets a kind of
market is daily held, that is, aline of canvas sheds
and booths are erected and very much obstruct
the thoroughfare for carts, while groups of people
on the foot pavements buying articles of the
barrow-women and stalls, also obstruct and stop

MANCHESTER. 129

up the foot-way for passengers : this shews the
want of a good capacious covered market; and
for so large a town there ought to be five or
six such covered markets, and each market should
have three or four distinct streets or stalls, say
one street for butchers' meat, one street for fish or
poultry, one street for vegetables and fruit, and
one street for miscellaneous things: a market-
place built upon this plan would be much better
than having a separate market for meat in one
part of the town, and then have to go a mile to
another part of the town for vegetables, and then
another mile to another market for poultry or fish.
It occupies too much of a day's time to go a-
marketing when every article that is wanted is
sold at a difierent market, sometimes at a good
distance from each other.

One great fault in Manchester is the having
placed some of their finest buildings in compara-
tively little-known streets : at least not easily found
by a stranger. The Town Hall for instance, — if
this very noble building had been built at the end
of one of the largest and most public streets, so as
to face down the street and be seen from a dis-
tance, what a grand effect it would have had ; as
it is, I passed the building by chance, and there
must be thousands of strangers that never see it
at all^ standing as it does, in that retired, dull,
quiet spot. King-street.

The following alterations are required in Man-
chester, to improve the town and make the
thoroughfares commodious and handsome.

Market-street should be carried on in a straight
line, and of the same width or wider, down to the

13(J IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

river Irwell; and this eould be done by simply
throwing back the north side of St. Mary's Gate
and Blackfriars, so as to be in the same line as
the north side of Market-street. I think no one
could say otherwise than that this would then be
a grand street. The present position of those
streets is so evidently spoiled, that it must be
obvious to every body, and it struck me at first
sight, as I was walking from one to the other.

A thoroughfare should be made on both banks
of the river Irwell, entirely through Manchester
and Salford. No obstacle should be allowed to pre-
vent this alteration, as nothing is more delightful
than to walk by a river in a city or a town.

That long, narrow, crowded, sloppy, muddy,
dusty, busy street, called Dean's Gate, should be
widened from one end to the other, and straight-
ened at its north end, in the vicinity of Victoria
Bridge* Twenty-six yards would not be too great
a width for this crowded thoroughfare.

An open square should be formed in front of the
Town Hall in King-street, by clearing away that
stack of houses between Cross-street and Essex-
street. And King-street itself should be widened
all the way down to New Bailey Bridge, and also
prolonged in a direct line to Mosley-street.

St. Ann's-square should be prolonged to King-
street, and thus make St. Ann's Church stand
nearly in the middle of the square. This opening
would bring together some of the respectable parts
of the town that are now divided.

A fine wide street should be carried from the
front of the Exchange, through Old Mill Gate and
Long Mill Gate (passing the Collegiate Church

MANCHESTER. 131

and displaying it), down to the east side of the
College, and abut on the river Irk. This altera-
tion would bring the Cathedral to the Exchange,
and strangers would know, for the first time, that
there was such an edifice worth seeing. I only
found it out by chance. The market-people, who
occupy the streets in front of the Exchange, should
be removed and located somewhere else. If the
stack of buildings, enclosed between Cockpit Hall
and McDonald's -lane, were cleared away, that
site would be more appropriate for a market-place
than suffering the crowds to block up the streets :
a large covered market should be erected there.
That large open space in front of the Exchange
should have a statue of Queen Alexandrina placed
in the centre, which would be a great ornament,
and much improve the neighbourhood of that focus
of commerce.

I am no advocate for placing churches or any
other buildings in the middle of a street, as it com-
pletely spoils the view up and down a street, and
thus Mosley-street is spoiled by St. Peter's Church,
at the same time that the church would have look-
ed as well, and been more quietly situated, if it
had been built on one side of St. Peter's-square,
and the street carried through the centre of the
square.

The whole of Lower Mosley-street should be
widened, and Upper Mosley-street should be
brought into one line with Oldham-road, by throw-
ing back the north-west side of Oldham-street, so
as to be in the same line : this would require the
entire removal of five long stacks of houses, but
the alteration would make a grand street and an

K 2

132 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

improvement that could not be regretted, provided
it be conducted judiciously, as the houses became
old and decayed and worth little more than the
ground they stood upon. The disjointed appear-
ance of this line of streets is so obvious to a
stranger perambulating them, that it struck me at
first sight.

Great Bridgewater-street should be widened
and form one line with Liverpool-road.

The whole of Portland-street should be widened
to its junction with Great Ancoats, and also carried
on straight and wide to Great Bridgewater-street.

Cannon-street should be made straight to Vic-
toria Bridge, by throwing back the south side of
Cateaton-street.

Swan-street and Miller's-street should be made
of the same width as Great Ancoats, all the way
to Ducie Bridge ; and a carriage-thoroughfare
should be made along the bank of the river Irk
from that bridge to the College, which would just
complete all my suggested improvements for Man-
chester.

The streets and lines of thoroughfare, here
pointed out, would embrace nearly all the princi-
pal scenes of business, science, pleasure, respec-
tability, and population, within an oblong square
so well defined, that people might perambulate
the town, from one part to another, through noble
and delightful streets, communicating with each
other rectangularly, and rendering it almost im-
possible for even a stranger to be at a loss to find
his way with the greatest facility to any part of
the town.

The wide part of Great Ancoats is about one of

MANCHESTER. 133

the best proportioned streets I have seen in any
country town : it is neither too wide nor too nar-
row, being of that excellent width, that it is in no
danger of ever being blocked up with carriages,
though the traffic were to increase a hundred fold,
at the same time it is narrow enough, to be lighted
properly in the centre by the lamps on the foot-
paths, at each side.

Oldham-road, on the contrary, appears to be of
so great a width, between the houses on one side
and the houses on the other, that in a very dark
foggy night, I should think it could not be well
lighted in the middle, owing to the distance of the
lamps on the foot-pavements.

But the fault is in the foot-ways of Oldham-
road, which are of a most absurd width, and made
exactly the reverse of what they ought to be ; for
that part of it paved with flagstones should be
next the houses, and that part paved with round
pebbles (which, by-the-bye, are exceedingly irk-
some and difficult to walk upon) should be next
the carriage way.

What need is there for having a foot-way thirty
or forty feet wide? What a deal of ground is
wasted in this way in Oldham-street. In the
most thronged streets of London, a foot-pavement
need not be wider than five or six yards ; every
foot beyond this width has neither regard to beauty
nor utility : and here I must remark, that the
width of a foot-pavement has a great deal to do
with the beauty of the shops and the appearance
of the houses generally ; in fact, people in car-
riages and cabriolets can scarcely see what is in
the shop-windows, when they are kept at the

134 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

awful distance of thirty or forty feet by such a
wide foot-pavement.

It is as great a fault to make a street too wide
as it is to make it too narrow, for let the popula-
tion of a city be ever so numerous, and the throng
of carriages and carts ever so great, yet a too-wide
street cannot be sufficiently lighted all across it,
so as to ensure safety and prevent accidents in
dark nights : there may be excellent lamps on
each side, and yet people will frequently be in
danger of being run over when crossing in a dark
night, owing to the obscurity of the centre of the
street : and, especially, in the fogs of November,
a person in the middle of a too- wide street, is in
the most imminent peril of his life, as he hears a
carriage coming rapidly upon him, and it is utterly
impossible for some minutes to tell whether it is
on his right hand or his left, or whether it is before
or behind him. There ought to be a line of white
stones along the centre of the pavement of any
street that is of an unusual width, and a line of
lamps along the said line of white stones.

A street wider than thirty or forty yards, inclu-
sive of two spacious foot-pavements, has no regard
to utility, and is, besides, a heavy expense to keep
in repair.

One or two Arcades are much wanted at Man-
chester for customers and visitors in rainy weather.
A gallery for pictures, and sundry other buildings
of science, commerce, and pleasure, are desiderata
in this improving town. New lines for the old
narrow streets should be marked out and drawn
on the plan of the town, and new public buildings
marked here and there, and then, whenever an old

CHESTER.

135

house was intended to be pulled down, the new
one should be erected on the new line.

CHESTER.

The city of Chester, one of the most venerable in
England, wants the following improvements ; viz.
1st, The city rampart or wall to be repaired, and
wherever it is pulled down, discontinued, or
stopped up, to be rebuilt, and continued quite
round the city, for a promenade for the inhabi-
tants, the enjoyment of the air, and the music of
the garrison-band. 2nd, To repair their piazza,
or covered street, and not only to carry the said
piazza the whole length of the street, but to have
it on both sides the same street on the same plan,
and at the same half-story height. There are
some articles which require a good deal of out-
ward show, such as silks, prints, shawls, furniture,
bonnets, pictures, music, curiosities, &c. &c,, and
a few such shops would do very well under a
piazza, as nothing creates so much ennui at home
as rainy weather; but if people cannot amuse
themselves at the shop-windows (which, nine cases
in ten, are the temptations to lay out their money)
without being wet or drenched with rain, or break-
ing the panes of glass with an umbrella, (some-
times a score of umbrellas are knocking at the
same window,) they may as well stay at home.

Chester is a city swarming with inns, taverns,
and lodging-houses ; now, so much inconvenience
arises to strangers from there being more than

136 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

one house having the same sign, that there should
be a heavy penalty levied on any person who
opens an inn or tavern with the same sign as
another. A gentleman travelling through Chester
once, was referred to the Nag's Head to be taken
up there by the coach : he happened to go to a new
house with the sign of the Nag's Head, set up in
opposition to the old one, while the coach stopped
at and waited for him half-an-hour at the latter,
and at length drove away without him, and the
Coach-oflSce people refused to return the money,
because he had unconsciously been the cause of
detaining the coach so long after its time, to the
injury of the other passengers. It was a shameful
transaction, as the landlord of the new Nag's
Head said the coach would be at his door every
minute, which he knew was a falsehood ; but the
trick, however, answered the landlord's purpose,
as the traveller was obliged to stay another
night at his house, and take three more meals
there. It was all owing to that infamous custom
of setting up opposition - houses with the same
sigUy and it should be put an end to by severe
penalties, and severe examples made of offenders.
Perhaps hundreds had lost their money and their
place in a coach by similar deception.

The foot-pavements and paving of the streets
are very bad in Chester, and want a thorough
reform. There are some streets without any foot-
pavement.

137

LIVERPOOL.

Liverpool is a splendid town, yet it has its draw-
backs and deformities. There is a foundry in the
very centre of the town, surrounded by a parcel of
little dirty, filthy, narrow streets, in which are
concentrated all the horribly bad smells that ever
united to knock a stranger down ; and, as if this
were not enough, people are obliged to walk in
the middle of these narrow muddy streets ; in some
places, for want of a paved side-path either on
one or both sides. The citizens should pull down
the foundry, the dyehouse, and the distillery, and
remove these buildings quite outside the town : they
are very prejudicial to the health and cleanliness
of the place in their present locality. Next, the
citizens should transplant the crowded poor people
from that centre of attraction for bad smells, to a
handsome new street in the suburbs, where the
honest operatives might have some chance of en-
joying cleanly ways, comfortable houses, and feel
that they are members of the human family, and
not beasts of the mire and clay. They should pull
down those black, wretched, dirty, unhealthy
streets of hovels in the centre of the town, and
make the spot a capacious open square, sur-
rounded by good houses, with piazzas to the
ground-floor, balconies to the first and second
story windows, and a shrubbery in the centre, in-
closed with Chinese railing. The citizens should
next bring up all the numerous ^poor families from
their cellars, and oblige them to live above ground
like their forefathers, and no longer suffer them to

138 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

i

copy after the mole and the rat, by living under
ground. Cellars were made for such unintellectual
things as coals, wines, potatoes, malt-liquors, &c.,
and not for animals possessing lungs : garrets at
the tip-top of a tall house are far preferable for a
residence, as far as it regards purity of atmo-
sphere.

They should also remove that stockade, or fort,
or battery, or whatever it is called, to another mile
down the river, and make the fortress large enough
and strong enough, not only to contain barracks
for three entire regiments, but also to be a real
defence to the river, and an outpost to the town
itself: at present it is a burlesque on fortification,
and might be taken and demolished by a troop of
old women. Some day or other, eighty thousand
Frenchmen and Americans will make a descent
near Liverpool, and give some trouble.

The citizens of Liverpool should dig all that
swamp at the West end of the town, along the
river-side, which is overflowed by the tide, and
which they are now endeavouring to fill up, four
or five feet deep all over, making the bottom every
where level at that depth, and keep it always full
of water by a parapet or wall between it and the
river ; and they might have a picturesque island
in the centre, covered with shrubbery, and orna-
mented with alcoves and a Chinese pagoda ; and
then they would have a very pretty lake, a mile
long, and half-a-mile broad, perfectly safe for the
delightful recreation of boating with oars or sails,
parties of pleasure for bathing and fishing ; for
none of these amusements can be followed with
any safety on the deep, broad Mersey, which is a

LIVERPOOL. 139

dangerous place for young land-sailors and ladies
fond of boating.

They should pull down one of those stupendous
ranges of warehouses, or stores, which overlook
the river and docks at the West end of the town,
and build a series of hotels, taverns, inns, and
public-houses on the site ; or perhaps they could
metamorphose the gigantic building into a number
of hotels, inns, and lodging-houses, without pull-
ing it down : when strangers go to Liverpool, it is
not to bury themselves in the back or centre
streets ; they want to see the majestic stream, the
noble ships, the crowded quays, the busy docks,
and to enjoy the fresh air, and snuflf up the sea-
breeze wafted along the wave : all this might be
enjoyed from the windows of hotels and lodging-
houses without the excessive fatigue of being per-
petually on one's legs. I was much disappointed
in not being able to procure a lodging that over-
looked the noble Mersey, the only hotel along the
river-side being full of strangers. Suppose only one
hundred strangers to arrive at Liverpool each day,
it gives more than thirty-six thousand visitors a-
year ; and I rather think, from what I saw during my
short stay, that this is not one- tenth of the number.

And before any more streets be built, they should
have the land all round the town surveyed, and a
ground plan of new streets laid out on paper, in
the first instance, and the plan should embrace
latitude and extent enough (with every possible
suggested improvement,) to occupy three hundred
years to come ; and it might include within it a
river Steyne, or mall, or marine parade, like the
Steyne at Brighton^ in Sussex.

140 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

I conclude with one more observation, and that
is, they should look well to the habitations of the
very poor people and endeavour to induce them to
keep their houses and shops and themselves a
little cleaner, for I never saw such horrible holes,
or so much filth, no,— not in the dirtiest alleys in
London, before the improvements ; and, as might
be expected, disagreeable irruptions and loathsome
diseases are caught at Liverpool without knowing
how or when. Why are there not some floating
baths instituted by the Lord Mayor and Corpora-
tion, which should be open to the public, and free
of expense to the labouring classes? Such an
institution would effect the greatest good.

COLCHESTER.

A PROPOSAL was published some years ago to
improve the town of Colchester, in Essex, by
effecting certain alterations: the first was, to
remove the church of St. Runawald from the
middle of High-street, it being a little shabby ugly
building, and a sad obstruction to the thoroughfare
of that otherwise fine street. 2nd : — In place of a
narrow lane which cuts the town in two, and
opens out nearly opposite that little church (St.
Runawald's) a handsome new broad street was to
be built, to reach from one side of the town to the
other, and the church of St. Runawald to be
rebuilt of larger dimensions on one side of the said
new street, and as near the original site as might
be practicable. 3rd : — The dwelling houses

COLCHESTER. 141

which intercept the view of the castle from High-
street were to be pulled down, and the whole
space to be paved and left open for the use of
public processions to the Castle, and for the better
display of that relic of antiquity. 4th : — A new
prison to be erected elsewhere out of sight, and
the prisoners to be no longer confined in the
castle. 5th : — The Castle being private property,
it was suggested that it should be purchased for
the purposes of the Corporation festivals and
duties, and be thoroughly repaired and restored
within and without, and no longer be suffered to
go to decay, and the interior to be rebuilt and
formed into suites of handsome and noble rooms,
and made subservient to all the purposes the
Moot Hall, or Guild Hall is now used for, and
thus become a venerable and majestic ornament
to the town, instead of being a mere ruin inhabited
by prisoners ; and the Moot Hall, which is a
disgrace to so handsome a town as Colchester, to
be altered into a private house. Corporation
dinners and balls, holiday festivals and civic
ceremonies to be celebrated in the Castle as the
most appropriate place for grandeur and pomp ;
also courts of justice might sit there. The custom
of fixing hurdles in the streets, and holding cattle
markets and fairs in them was also recommended
to be forbidden ; and several other useful improve-
ments were suggested.

These proposals were met by a kind of oppo-
sition cry of — "Whence are the funds to come
from to effect these alterations and improvements ?
As to the utility to be derived from them most
people are perfectly agreed, but the plans would

l42 IMPROVEMENT OF tOWNS.

cost an immense sum of money, and the Com-
tnissioners have not one-tenth part sufficient to
put them in execution."

Opposers of public improvements always tread
upon the same ground of error, namely — the idea
that such things must be done in a moment ; and
this begets the very natural question of " From
whence are the funds to come?" It has been
said of Legislation, that we should legislate for
those who are to come after us, as well as for the
present generation ; and it may be said with equal
propriety and force, that *'we should build and
improve for those who are to come after us, as
well as for the present ;" and if we fulfilled this
i^axim, it would beget more extended ideas, and
more expansive liberality, and not such selfish
narrow plans as circumscribe each one's present
desires. If the Romans, when in possession of
London, had been asked to draw a plan on paper
of the present metropolis, and to build it, they
would have said " it is impossible ! — where are
the funds to come from ?" Yet time has proved
that it was not impossible ; and the most gigantic
plans can be accomplished by time, perseverance,
and patience.

Again : — The Improvement Commissioners are
referred to, as if they had any thing to do in the
matter ; and indeed from their title one might
easily be led into the mistake that they have ;
but the fact is, they have no power or authority to
put in their interference in ,any alterations or
beautifyings taken in hand by a body of inhabi-
tants. Improvement Commissioners were mainly
instituted to take care of the sewers and the

COLCHESTER. 143

pavements, to do away with obstructions in
thoroughfares, to remove nuisances, and generally
to effect such obvious improvements in towns
as affect the nation at large ; but they have no
right to interfere in the beautifying of a town,
unless their duty called upon them to see that
the public comfort and convenience be not en-
croached upon : excepting where more authority
is delegated to them by, and specific objects are
stated in, an Act of Parliament.

They have no right to prevent the population of
a town from subscribing a penny a week for the
purchase and removal of an old house standing in
an inconvenient situation. For instance, they
could not prevent the populace of London from
subscribing a penny a-piece to remove the houses
which intercepted the view of St. Bride's Church
from Fleet-street, which was afterwards effected.

They have no right to prevent the owner of a
house in Halifax from pulling it down and rebuild-
ing it further back. They have no right to inter-
fere with an association of public-spirited indivi-
duals in the building of a new street, or in the
straightening and widening of an old one. They
have no right to prevent any body or society from
forming public gardens, erecting an arcade, or dig-
ging a piece of water for boating and swimming.
And the only right they have, is to see that the
new streets be of a proper width, and efficiently
drained, for the sake of the health of their inhabi-
tants, and to compel good pavements and clean
thoroughfares through them, and that each house
has a proper cabinet d'aisance.

People in business are sometimes afraid of being

144 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

injured by the building of a handsome new street ;
thus, I have been assailed by my friends, Mr.
B — , Cheesemonger, of Angel-court; Mr. F — ,
Bookseller, of Crooked-lane ; and Mr. D — , Linen-
draper, of Long-alley, that when the grand street
is finished they will lose my custom, and that I
shall deal only at the grand shops in the grand
street ; and I have had much ado to quiet their
fears, and to persuade them that we do not quit
old friends, though the Pope himself should set up
a shop in the grand street ; at length, when they
were convinced that the grand streets would in-
crease the opulence of the town, they were as
much in favour of the improvements as they were
before against them.

There is another mistake which obtains posses-
sion of some people's minds, namely, that an Act of
Parliament is requisite, before a street or a house
can be altered or removed. This entirely depends
upon the undertakers themselves ; if the alteration
be a great public benefit, and yet meets with a
spiteful opposition from some owners of property,
who are ever ready to assert their expected in-
juries by it, but which are in general visionary,
inasmuch as a new site for business in an im-
proved neighbourhood and more eligible situation,
must be a ^aw rather than an injury; why, then
the safest proceeding would be to have the
authority of an Act of Parliament ; but when there
is no opposition, and all parties are cordially
united, and agreed upon an alteration or im-
provement, there is no need of any law for its
accomplishment.

Of course, all improvements suppose that

COLCHESTER. 145

owners of property in a house or houses, that are
to be pulled down, or in land that is to be occu-
pied, are protected from loss by fair and honour-
able valuation, as well as an equivalent in the
exchange of and choice of a new house, or a new
site, if required. A ground-plan should be en-
graved and published, of all the improvements
that a single town is capable of for three hundred
years to come, and as years roll away, the diffe-
rent portions of the plan might be accomplished
from time to time ; wealth would increase, and not
only accelerate, but stimulate their execution ; and
every body would be delighted with the beautiful
arrangements and appearance of their native
town. Who can view the sublime alterations of
the last twenty years in many parts of London,
without being absorbed in admiration and delight?
What grandeur, what beauty does the architecture
of some of the new streets display ! and yet it
was not all done in a moment ; but it is done, and
in such perfection that no further improvement in
them is possible, and the inhabitants are, very
justly, not a little pleased, and not a little grateful
to the authorities, for their beautiful new streets.

House-rents were very high during the last war,
and one cause might be the want of labourers,
owing to the great drain of men for the army and
navy. Rents are now as low as they ever can be,
and any alteration must ensue in a rise, come when
it may ; but labourers are plentiful, and may be
procured for any great work in multitudes, and at
moderate wages. These circumstances are rather
favourable for the undertaking of great improve-
ments, and the concluding consideration is the

146 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

raising of the necessary funds for commencing.
The railroads all over the kingdom are just
finished, — the last, I believe, is the one from
London to Brighton: I recommend the mode of
raising funds for improvement of towns, though on
a smaller scale, which has been so successful in the
accomplishment of those gigantic enterprises, the
railroads, namely, by shares. Shares can be taken
by wealthy men of other towns, and also by
strangers, as well as by the inhabitants of the
town where the improvements are to be made, —
and there need not be an Act of Parliament to in-
corporate a Building Society. Suppose a whole
side of an ill-built, crooked, and decayed street,
numbered from 1 to 40, to be purchased at the
average price of 500Z. for each of the forty houses,
say 20,000/. ; and pulled down, and twenty good
houses with shops, built in their place for 2000/.
a-piece, say 40,000/., total 60,000/., and each new
house lets for 150/. a-year, producing 3000/. a-year,
rent ; this would pay the subscribers of the 60,000/.
five per cent, for the loan, besides the valuable
and substantial property being a security. I have
known as much as 60/. a-year rent paid for a
single shop in a market-town, and 100/. a-year
rent for a single counting-house, without the upper
rooms ; and there can be no doubt that new hand-
some houses would pay well, and be very safe
property.

When one wretched street was thus improved,
finished, and made attractive, the same proceed-
ing could be entered into for the renovation of
another; and when this was finished, a third
street might be renewed in the same way, good

COLCHESTER. 147

faith, perseverance, and time, being necessary in-
gredients in the plan.

There are other ways of raising funds besides
the foregoing, such as a tontine, an annual sub-
scription, or even a lottery might be permitted on
occasion, for raising new buildings ; I merely
offer the foregoing hints for the consideration of
men of business, who will understand these matters
much better than myself, and who would make no
diflSculty in carrying every plan into execution.

SHEDS ADJOINING DWELLING-HOUSES.

There is a very reprehensible custom among
builders in villages and njral districts, that of
erecting what is called a lean-to, or shed, against
the back or the end of a dwelling-house ; for the
various purposes of a coal-house, or fire- wood, or a
brewery, or workshop, and often for a stall for a
horse or a cow. No custom among builders can
be more impolitic, or more injurious, nor in the
end more expensive ; and as there is always plenty
of room and spare ground in the country, for erect-
ing these sheds separate and apart from the dwell- ;
ing-house, there is no excuse for such a senseless
custom. The only thing that can be advanced in
defence of it, is the saving of the expense of erect-
ing one side wall.

Every year, we read in the newspapers of num-
bers of dwelling-houses having had the lead stolen
from their roofs, and one or two years in particular,
when lead was very dear, hundreds of houses all
over the country had the lead stripped from their
roofs and gutters, and from around the chimney,
by thieves during dark nights ; and when the rain

l2

148 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

or wind made so much noise as to prevent the
inmates from hearing what was going on over their
heads. On one of these occasions I happened to
be lying awake about four o'clock, in the month
of November, a very dark morning, when I heard
footsteps on the roof of my house, and wondered
what my neighbours could be doing there so early
in the morning, but supposed something was the
matter with the tiling, and never dreamed of their
being lead-stealers, for, until I suffered from them I
had paid no attention to the accounts in the news-
papers : however, a very short time after, I was
uncommonly surprised to see the rain penetrate,
and water running down the walls of my chambers,
exactly under the places where the roof and chim-
neys had been leaded, and beginning to have sus-
picions of what the cause was, I went out and
examined the roof, and found truly enough that all
the lead had been recently stripped from the roof
and chimneys.

There is a lean-to or shed at the back of the
house, the roof of which slopes down to within
seven feet of the ground, and the upper part com-
municates with another sloping roof, and this leads
to the roof of the house : there must have been
two thieves, and one was hoisted up by the other, to
the lowest roof, and when there, the roofs of the
whole pile of building were in his possession.

But there are two other disadvantages in these
sheds and lean-tos besides the loss of lead ; one
is the well known fact that thieves frequently get
upon them, and by the removal of a few tiles,
effect an easy entrance into a house : the other is
the habitukl custom of boys at play, who, when

COLCHESTER. 149

they get their kite entangled, or lose their ball or
shuttle-cock on the roof of a house, immediately
mount upon the sloping roof of a shed or lean-
to, and so from that roof to another, and recover
their play- things ; and this is such a daily and
hourly custom and so universal, that thousands of
roofs are injured by the sturdy and careless step
of youth, whose feet crack some of the tiles and
disarrange a great many more ; and, be the roof
ever so good, this is the cause, nine times in ten,
that owners and occupiers of houses are so per-
petually put to the expense of repairing the tile-
ing, but the real cause of the tiles being so often
broken is never suspected : thus in the end a
house-roof becomes more expensive in repairs than
the additional erection of one side wall to a shed
or lean-to, in building it apart from a house.

I have been rather prolix, and dwelt rather long
on these helps to thieves, but stealing lead is one
of the greatest evils of the land, and the punish-
ment of transportation for life ought to be awarded
to lead stealers, as thousands of well-papered, dry,
and comfortable rooms have been made damp by
their daring thefts, and thousands of valuable
pictures and framed engravings hanging on the
walls have been spoiled with wet and mildew; as
well as good furniture and wearing apparel ; but
worse than all, the health of families have been
severely injured through houses becoming damp
from the loss of lead, which loss has not been
discovered perhaps for some time after it was
effected. I state this from experience in many
instances.

150 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

WATERING THE HIGHWAYS.

The following system of keeping the roads,
would be found of considerable benefit to tra-
vellers.

Government should erect labourers' detached
cottages at certain distances from each other,
along the several lines of mail- roads through-
out England, to be occupied by pensioned pioneers
from the regiments of sappers and miners, en-
gineers, &c. ; the inhabitants of each cottage
should have the care of a certain portion of road,
to keep it in order, and be provided with every
necessary to render assistance in case of accidents
or robberies, as well as with a large bell to give an
alarm along the road in case of need ; and, what
would be of almost as great consequence to the
comfort and pleasure of travellers as level roads,
these guardians of the highways should be pro-
vided with a horse and water-cart, and they should
forfeit their pay if ihey did not keep the roads
y^ell watered in dusty weather.

HULL.

Nothing can be more delightful than groves and
public walks in the vicinity of a town, when the
site is well chosen as regards prospect-scenery
and fresh air, for the townspeople to recreate their
minds and bodies, in an evening after a day of
close application to a shop or counting house.
There was lately a project in contemplation at

HULL. 151

Hull, in Yorkshire, to secure a large and complete
promenade round the whole of the town. In a
paper issued by the Provisional Committee they
say " No town in the kingdom is at present so
devoid of interesting walks as Hull ; and when it
is considered that the promenade will extend
completely round the town, for a distance of four
and a half miles by fifty yards, and contain two
spacious foot roads and a splendid carriage road,
with rows of trees on each side, it must be ad-
mitted that no town will then be able to outvie it.
To carry this object into effect, it is proposed to
purchase ground, the whole extent of the road, of
the width of 150 yards, reserving to the land^
owners the privilege of forming the road through
their own land on the proposed plan, and thereby
obtaining excellent frontages for building. The
road, when completed, is proposed to be thrown
open for the public benefit, and the ground on each
side of it will be equally divided amongst the sub-
scribers by lot ; so that each subscriber of 100/.
will be entitled after conferring an inestimable
benefit on the public, to about two thousand
square yards of huilding-groundy with a frontage
to this splendid promenade or avenue."

Excellent as the intentions of the committee
are, the foregoing plan contains a proposal for as
great an absurdity as, perhaps, ever was thought
of; no less than a public drive and promenade, to
be carried through the fields and open country, all
round the town for the purposes of recreation and
the enjoyment of healthy exercise in the exhilarat-
ing air of the open country which the inhabitants
cannot obtain within the streets of the town ; yet

152 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

r

thia promenade or road, must forsooth, have build-
ing-ground along its whole length, which building-
ground will in a few years be occupied by houses
and other buildings, and thus the open airy road
is to be hedged in on all sides by walls and smoke,
and the prospects of the country and the rural
scenery of the fields, trees, hedges, herds and
flocks are to be shut out ! ! ! When the rows of
buildings shall be finished, the road will be no
better than a good street in a town, but without
the advantages, variety, and pleasure, afforded by
the handsome shops of the latter.

How much more beneficial to the public, plea-
surable and advantageous to individuals, and
novel, beautiful, and varied, would it be, were the
space intended for building-ground divided into
uniform allotments of half an acre each, and let
out at low rents to the townspeople for gardens
(and thousands would undoubtedly snatch eagerly
at the desirable little plots thus situated in a circle
within walking distance of the most delightful
resort of the town), binding the tenants down to
the observation of one uniform regulation and
covenant, of which a few of the articles should be
as follows, viz. 1st, That each garden shall have a
summer-house, or a kiosk, or minaret, or pagoda,
or bower, or arbour, or alcove, or grotto, or cavern,
or pavilion, or temple, or sham Chinese bridge, or
spire, or monument, or observatory, or cupola, or
some other varied edifice erected in the centre of
the garden of not less than eight feet square nor
more than sixteen feet square, so that no part of
the country be obstructed by any large building.
2nd, That no garden shall be allowed to go to or

HULL. 153

remain in a weedy or uncultivated condition. 3rd,
That no building or edifice whatever, shall be at
any time erected in any garden save and except
the aforementioned ornamental ones. 4th, That
no cattle, large or small, nor any animals what-
ever, especially goats and rabbits, be allowed to
be kept in or to enter any garden* 5th, That
orderly behaviour be observed by every person
frequenting their gardens. 6th, That at the hour
of ten from May to September, and at eight the
remaining months, every night, the gardens be
quitted by every person; and that they be not
entered, on any morning throughout the year
before break of day. 7th, That no one tenant
shall rent more than two plots at any time, and
not more than one plot if there be a claimant left
unprovided for. 8th, That no drunkenness be per-
mitted in the gardens, nor on Sundays any work
be permitted to be done. 9th, That no subletting
or underletting be permitted, nor any garden be
permitted to be divided into smaller plots by any
wall, railing, fence, hedge, or ditch, &c., save and
except the division by walks, paths, fruit trees,
flower borders, &c. 10th, That the half-acre lots
be divided from each other by a substantial low
wall (of brick or stone with mortar) not exceeding
four feet in height, and be surrounded by such
wall, with a door in front of the road. 11th, That
if any running water has a course through the
gardens, it be not wastefuUy or unfairly monopo-
lized or turned off by any occupier of any garden.
12th, That no public meeting either for political or
any other purpose be suffered to be held in any
garden, — and so forth. To these, the inhabitants

154 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

might add such further rules as would suit their
locality and other circumstances.

Were the " public promenade or drive, of four
and a-half miles all round the town," thus belted,
the variety of scene and taste would be as endless
as the garden-belt would be beautiful ; and while
each person would strive to outdo his neighbour,
either in the neatness or varied plan and style of the
summer-houses, the products of the ground would
also sustain considerable rivalry, and, perhaps,
not inconsiderable profit ; at least, all might hope
to reap domestic benefits from fruits and vege-
tables, having a more delightful place to resort to,
and a more healthy exercise at the close of a day
of in-door sedentary labour, than that of the tavern,
the public-house or dram-shop within the- town.
These gardens would indeed be an inestimable
benefit to the public ; but whether a road or pro-
menade, hedged in, either on one or both sides, by
lofty houses, will prove so inestimable a benefit as
the projectors imagine (excepting to their own
pockets), perhaps the public will be better judges
in a few years than they can be at present.

While on the subject of public walks and gar-
dens, for towns in England, I shall beg leave to
throw together a few hints for beautifying towns
in Australia.

Suppose a town to be built on a plain, which
rises with an easy ascent towards some eminence
or picturesque hill a few miles distant : the streets
straight and parallel, intersecting each other at
right angles, and like those of Cape Town in South
Africa, shaded on each side with a row of elm or
oak trees, the houses in some streets built with

AUSTRALIA. 155

vitrified brick of large size, in other streets with
hewn stone, large and roomy, and substantially
erected, with a piazza or verandah in front of
them, under which the inhabitants could lounge
during the evening and inhale the feshness of the
breeze, and be sheltered during the day from the
fervid rays of the sun. By means of hydraulic
pipes, a plentiful supply of excellent water could
be furnished to each house in every part of the
town. The public edifices should be elegant and
substantial buildings, standing in squares, and the
squares and streets be wide and spacious, well
laid out and kept extremely clean. At Stellen-
bosch, in the Cape. Colony, there are groves of
large oak and magnificent camphor trees ; so there
might be in South Australia, if the settlers would
but procure a few thousand saplings and plant
them, as the climates and soil are similar in both
countries. A town should have numerous and
extensive well-planted gardens and orchards in
every part, so that when viewed f^;om a church-
tower or neighbouring hill, the prospect would be
charmingly picturesque, as it is at Uitenhage in
South Africa : moreover, each garden should have
a tall kiosk or minareted summer-house, where
the females of the family might frequently enjoy
their needle-work in rural retirement and delight.
When a town is situated near a river, the gardens
and orchards could be fertilized by small channels
made with clay or brick and cement (twelve inches
wide by fifteen inches deep, as in Bengal and at
Madras), leading the water from the upper parts
of the river or lake. At Graham's Town a small
river flows through the main street, performing

156 IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

the part of the Indian canals in watering the or-
chards and gardens with which that town is inter-
sected. Wherever there are hanging woods or any
beautiful and romantic feature in the scenery, the
inhabitants should invariably and immediately pe-
tition the local government, that such woods might
be preserved for ever, and never be cut down :
such is the superb and beautiful scenery at So-
merset in South Africa. Each house might have
an allotment of ground at some distance from the
town, of several acres, to be laid out in vineyards,
and divided by aloes, quince, lemon, and pome-
granate hedges, as at Graaf Reinet. The streets
at this latter place are planted with rows of stand*
ard lemon and orange trees, which thrive luxuri-
antly, and give to the town a fresh and pleasing
appearance; and so might the Australian towns
have their rows of lemon and orange trees, watered
by numerous small channels and canals from the
nearest river, reservoir, or bowery, or well, each in-
habitant receiving his due portion of the vivifying
stream at a regular hour, exactly as they do at
Graaf Reinet from the Sunday river. The banks
of the Gariep river, in Africa, are lined with fine
willow trees, bending gracefully over the stream,
and I should think that this useful tree would
thrive as well in Australia.

The culture of the vine should be a popular and
even a national occupation in Australia, and the
inhabitants of every town and village, hamlet and
single cottage, should consider it part and parcel
of their inheritance, and their staff of life. Five
thousand vines, cultivated after the gooseberry-
bush fashion, in rows, may be planted on one

AUSTRALIA. 157

acre of ground, and will yield five pipes of wine
(760 gallons), the wholesale price of the pipe
being forty pounds sterling. At Constantia farm,
in South Africa, the vine is supported on frames
raised a few feet above the earth, or (as in India
at some places I visited) on lofty trellises over the
walks in gardens, supported on square pillars of
masonry, eight feet high, along which they extend
in luxuriant richness. At the Cape there is a
fine large white Persian grape, called henapod
or cocksfoot, which yields a delicious but expen-
sive wine, but this grape being fleshy, is more
generally planted for the purpose of being con-
verted into raisins. The vine thus trained on tall
frames, overspreading the walks of the gardens,
surrounding the flat-roofed white-washed country-
houses of the respectable small shop-keepers in
the vicinity of a town, enhances greatly the beauty
of the landscape, and brings to one's recollection
that little paradise the island of Madeira.

In Picardy, now the Department du Nord, in
France, the roads in many parts are lined with
tall standard apple trees, healthy and beautiful to
the sight : I have seen them loaded with large red
apples, with which the proprietors make their
celebrated cider. The soil is sandy and rocky,
even ankle-deep in loose sand, which seems to
agree with the trees : but if travelling through
these avenues of rosy fruit trees was delightful, I
was no less astonished to learn that the people are
so scrupulously honest, that they never steal the
lovely and inviting fruit ; neither would my mentor
allow me to gather one or two of those fallen on
the ground, although I begged hard to be allowed

158 IMPROVEMENT OF

to descend from the cabriolet for that purpose, a
very good lesson on self-denial for a youth. Let
the Australians also line their roads with fruit
trees, standard peaches and apricots, and other
sorts that may suit the soil; also here and there a
few Indian banyan trees {ficus indicus) for shade
for the traveller. The Education Journal contains
the following anecdote on gratitude : — " A very
poor aged man, busied in planting and grafting an
apple tree, was rudely interrupted by this interro-
gation : * Why do you plant trees, who cannot
hope to eat the fruit of them ?' He raised himself
up, and, leaning upon his spade, replied 'Some
one planted trees before I was born, and 1 have
eaten the fruit ; I now plant for others, that the
memorial of my gratitude may exist when I am
dead and gone.' "

PRIVATE DWELLING-HOUSES.

However beautiful and ornamental a building
may be, and however pleasing to the eye exterior
uniformity, a builder should always attend to the
wants, necessaries, conveniences, and comforts
of life, in preference to either ornament or uni-
formity ; but as it is possible to blend one with
the other, and to unite, in the same building, just
proportions and suitable arrangements of rooms
and offices, with exterior convenience and taste,
the following observations are here offered, for

PRIVATE DWELLING-HOUSES. 159

the consideration and use of the wealthy classes of
Great Britain and the Colonies.

Situations in the country for building on should
be free from the danger of floods and inundations,
either of rivers, lakes or mountain-torrents. They
should be free from the danger of falling rocks or
avalanches from the precipitous sides of hills, as
well as from the risk of great storms bringing
down large trees. They should, if possible, be far
from unhealthy swamps or marshes, and, if pos-
sible, should always stand on slight and easy
enainences, but not away from fresh water, unless
the locality admits of sinking wells.

Foundations to build upon, whether natural or
artificial, should be well considered before com-
mencing, as well as the quality, quantity, value,
and distance of the materials, such as lime, stone,
brick, tile, timber, slate, sand, earth, chalk, clay,
metals, &c.

Having fixed on a spot, and examined it with
care as to soil, situation, and timber, the person
intending to build (as well in the Colonies as at
home) should weigh well its localities before pur-
chasing, and then be equally careful in deciding
upon the situation for his house, which ought to
be upon a dry soil and elevated situation ; as near
as possible, also, to the road or water communica-
tion, if there be any ; above all, a healthy situation
is to be preferred to a few miles' distance. In
some parts of North America, it is astonishing
how many days' labour are lost to a settler by
actual sickness ; indeed, salubrity of situation
should be preferred, even at some ex pence of fer-
tility or proximity to a market. A slight elevation.

160 IMPROVEMENT OF

if attainable, is highly useful in admitting a good
cellar to be dug under the floor of the house,
which is a matter not to be forgotten, as malt-
liquors never keep well above ground. At any
new settlement in Australia, a temporary dwelling
or log-house might be erected for the family, until
the larger house be completed. The log-house
can be covered with bark, which is taken from the
adjacent trees, and two stout men will effectually
do this in two weeks, so as to render the family
tolerably comfortable. A common shed, also
covered with bark, can be formed of poles in half
a day, to screen them from the sun, and will also
be found sufficient protection from the rains in
that fine climate, for the short period of a fort-
night.

FOUNDATIONS.

As firmness of foundation is indispensable^
wherever it is intended to erect the building, the
earth should be pierced by an iron bar, or struck
with a rammer, and the loose and soft parts of the
soil must be excavated, until the settler arrives at
a solid bed, capable of sustaining the walls, &c.
Large slabs of stone, if procurable, should form
the first layer, and this lower bed of rough stones
should project about a foot from the face of the wall
on each side, and on this bed one or more courses of
stone may be laid, and then the wall may be com-
menced and carried up to the level of the top of
the trench, where the breadth of it may be dimin-
ished to the thickness of the intended walls above
ground ; that is, the foundation-wall must project
several inches on both sides the upper walling.

PRIVATE DWELLING-HOUSES. 161

PRIVATE DRAINS.

No house, however humble, should be built
without first forming drains ; this should be done
at the time of laying the foundations. The
drains should always be twelve inches wide and
eighteen inches deep, the covering being of thick
oak, teak, iron -wood or any other tough wood,
slabs or stone, and never arched with bricks, which
are always liable to be burst in, the bricks rotting
under ground sooner than oak and other hard
woods. Drains, of the foregoing minimum dimen-
sions, may be made at any depth, provided they
be not lower than the bottom of the foundations of
the buildings. Drains should invariably be carried
entirely round a house, both within and outside the
walls : those within should circumscribe the floors
at about six or eight inches from the wall, and
need not be more than a few inches below the
floor. The outer drains should circumscribe the
house at about two feet from the walls, and their
depth under the surface of the ground may be
adapted to the circumstances of the surrounding
grounds, and the fall or slope of the country ; and
although not lower than the foundations, yet they
should always absolutely lie deeper than the in-
side drains.

An outer series of very deep drains, and of
larger dimensions, say seven feet high, by three
feet wide, should always be carried round a pile
of buildings or row of houses, at the distance of
thirty or forty feet from them, and lying deeper
under the surface of the ground than the smaller
drains, to receive the water from the latter, and to

M

162 IMPROVEMENT OF

prevent them from sapping the foundations and
surrounding ground. Indolence and recklessness
may disregard this advice on draining ; but com-
fort, healthy and cleanliness, will deem them of
great importance ; therefore, when men undertake
to build permanent dwellings who cannot afford
these primary operations, they had much better
not build at all.

MORTAR.

In Southern India, the Hindoos make their
mortar of shells gathered on the sea-shore, and
with or without sand, it is the hardest mortar in
the world : they call it Chunam. The colonists of
Australia might copy the Hindoos in this branch
of the domestic arts with advantage; and they
would do well to import a few shell-pickers> lime-
burners, chunam-beaters, and native bricklayers^
to teach and improve them in these trades.

Whether mortar be made of stone-lime or shell-
lime, it should never be made with sand from the
sea-shore, unless such sand has been previously
washed in a stream of clear fresh water, and di-
vested of its saline particles : nor should mortar
contain any proportion of clay or mud. The
general proportions given by the London builders,
for making mortar, are, one-and-a-half cwt., or
thirty-seven bushels of lime, to two-and-a-half
loads of sand. Dr. Higgins has given the follow-
ing proportions : — lime, newly-slaked, one part 'y
fine sand, three parts ; and coarse sand, four parts.
The more the mortar is beaten, the less proportiou
of lime suffices. On the Coromandel Coast, the
builders employ great numb^r^ of women to pound

PRIVATE DWELLING-HOUSES. 163

the mortar in stone troughs, with heavy rammers,
five feet long, and as thick as a man's arm, as the
author often witnessed, and the mortar is after-
wards as hard as stone.

BRICKS AND STONE.

The mould for making bricks is about ten
inches in length, and five in breadth ; and the
bricks, when burnt, are about nine inches long,
four and a-half broad, and two and a-half inches
thick : they would he much stronger ^ and cut a better
appearance, if they were one inch larger every way.
Strength is everything in building.

Stones hewn for the walls of houses should be
fourteen inches long, seven inches broad, and five
thick, being the most convenient dimensions for
handling and walling, and presenting the hand-
somest appearance.

When building a wall in dry weather, the bricks
must be wetted or dipped in water, as they are
laid, to cause them to adhere to the mortar, which
they would not do if laid dry ; for the dry sandy
nature of the brick absorbs the moisture of the
mortar, and prevents adhesion.

Houses should not be built with red bricks, as
they are soft, very porous, and absorb a deal of
moisture^ and thus render a house very damp.

OUTER WALLS AND PARTITION WALLS.

No person should build, or cause to be built,
any house or houses, whether for the rich or the
humbler classes of society, in Great Britain, Ire-
land,, and the Colonies, with walls of less than the
following dimensions apd strength.

M 2

164 IMPROVEMENT OF

, Party and external walls should always be of
equal thickness.

. All the outer walls of any house or houses, whe-
ther built with stone or brick, should be cemented
with good mortar, and should never be of a less
thickness than eighteen inches, if brick, or twenty-
one inches if stone, when the building does not
exceed in height a ground-floor, — that is to say,
has not a story above it. But when there is a
story above the ground-floor, the walls should
invariably, universally and compulsorily, be made
two feet thick. A building of two stories and a
garret should have walls two feet and a-half thick,
from the ground up as high as the floor of the
second story, whence it may be diminished in
thickness. Buildings of three, four, and five
stories, with attics, should have walls three feet
thick up to the floor of the first story, two and a-
half feet thick from thence up to the floor of the
second story, two feet thick from thence up to the
floor of the third or fourth story, and still more
diminished above. The foundation-walls of every
building according to the foregoing dimensions,
should also be proportionally thicker under ground
(by projections of one foot, two feet, &c*) than the
walling above ground, and should be of a sufficient
depth to ensure stability and safety.

Partition-walls inside a house two stories high,
should never be less than ten inches thick up to
the upper floor, which, if built with brick, would
be as thick as the length of a brick, with half an
inch of mortar or wainscot on each side. For
houses more than two stories high, the partition-
wall on the ground-floor ought to be at least a

PRIVATE DWELLING-HOUSES. 166

brick arid a half thick, or even two feet thick. I
know that these dimensions are not agreeably to
the present fashion and rage for doing everything
on the cheapest plan ; but I would abolish cheap
estimates and cheap plans. Let cheapness be no
longer the guide and moving spring of contractors;
builders, and owners of property : strength and
comfort should be their everlasting maxim. A
house with thin partition-walls is sure to shake,
and I have seen some new ones absolutely dan-
gerous. By party-walls, I mean those that divide
house from house, and by partition-walls, I mean
those that divide the chambers and passages in
one and the same house.

SHAPE AND SIZE OF ROOMS.

With regard to the internal divisions of a dwell-
ing-house, utility requires that the rooms be rect-
angular, to avoid useless spaces. An hexagonal
figure leaves no void spaces, but it determines the
rooms to be all of one size, which is both incon-
venient and disagreeable for want of variety.
Though a cube be the most agreeable figure, and
may answer for a small room, yet in a very large
room, utility requires a difierent figure. Uncon-
fined motion is the chief convenience of a great
room : to obtain this, the greatest length that can
be had is necessary ; but a square room of large
size is very inconvenient, as it removes to too
great a distance from the hand, the chairs, tables,
&c., which, when unemployed, must be ranged along
the sides of the room. Utility, therefore, requires
a large room to be a parallelogram or oblong-
square. This figure is likewise best calculated

166 IMPROVEMENT OP ;

for the admission of light ; because, to avoid cross*
lights, all the windows ought to be in one wall ;
and if the opposite wall be at such a distance as
not to be fully lighted, the room must be obscure.
The height of a room in England exceeding nine
or ten feet, has little relation to utility ; and p*o-
portion is the only rule for determining the height
when above that number of feet.

In houses consisting of only two or three rooms
on the ground-floor, and the same number above,
the ground-floor rooms ought never to be less than
nine or ten feet high ; and the story above never
less than 8| or nine feet high ; and no room in
any small house or cottage, however humble,
should be less than fifteen feet square, and nine
feet high on the ground-floor, nor less than eight
feet high in the story above.

In large houses, the height of the rooms should
be proportioned to their length and breadth,
whenever the rooms are all of the same size ; at
least, the principal rooms should be so. For
example, the proportions of a room, the height
of which is sixteen feet, should be twenty-four
feet broad, and thirty-six long ; but as such a
height is scarcely ever attainable, and seldom
necessary in a private dwelling, in the cold
climate of England, (it may do well in Australia,)
I shall give the following proportions of rooms,
the story being the standard for the ground-floor.

The height being 9} feet, it should be 15 feet long by 15 ft. broad.
Ditto „ 10 do. „ 18 do. by 15 ditto.

Ditto „ lOJ do. „ 20 do. by 15 ditto.

Ditto „ 11 do. „ 24 do. by 16 ditto.

Ditto „ 12 do. „ 30 do. by 20 ditto.

Ditto ,, 13j| do. „ 36 do. by 20 ditto.

PRIVATE DWELLING-HOUSES. 167

\>

Whea the height of the
story is eighteen feet.

It should be 18 feet long by 18 broad''

27 „ by 18

30 „ by 20

33 „ by 22

36 „ by 24

M „ by 36

An entresol on the first story may be necessary
sometimes.

A room 18 or 20 feet long, and only 14 feet
broad appears narrow and confined, and is found
to be very inconvenient ; indeed, the practical in-
convenience of such a width has frequently been
witnessed by myself, and I therefore lay it down
as a universal rule that the minimum breadth of
any room should be fixed at fifteen feet.

VERANDAHS, OR PIAZZAS.

In columns and pillars for piazzas, verandahs,
porticos, &c., the proportion between the height
and thickness of the pillars varies between eight
diameters and ten, and every proportion between
these two extremes is /agreeable. The intervals
between columns may be seven diameters, or more
if necessary.

A verandah is so useful and so delightful a part
of a house, that I shall say no more than strongly
to recommend settlers in Australia never to build
a house without one. A verandah or piazza
should never be less than seven feet, nor more
than twelve feet wide. Every house in England
ought to have a verandah.

DOORS.

. The outer or entrance-doors of a dwelling house,
vshould never be less than seyen feet high and four

168 IMPROVEMENT OF

feet wide ; the inner doors should never be less
than six feet six inches high and three feet
six inches wide. I am acquainted with one
tall gentleman who has had some very severe
blows on the top of his head from passing under
low doorways: and thousands have suffered in
similar way.

The ground-floors of a house should not be more
than six or eight inches above the level of the
ground outside, nor should there be more than one
step to the entrance-doors. Palaces and man-
sions are exceptions, and would look ill without
grand flights of steps. All the floors of the
several rooms in a house should be on the same
level, and a large house entirely on the ground-
floor, and without stairs or upper rooms, is prefer-
able to one with stairs and upper stories. Many
large bungalows in India contain a great many
rooms, all on the ground-floor, and they are
certainly more convenient and delightful than the
storied and staircased houses of England. Stairs
are a necessary evil in cold climates. I reckoa
that one million of women and girls have been
burnt to death, and one million of old men have
broken their necks owing to staircases. The
palace of one of the petty sovereigns of Rajpoo-
tanah, in India, being rather an extensive building
and having an upper story, is yet without stair-
cases, their places being supplied by gently in--
dined planes.

WINDOWS.

The size of windows ought always to be propor-
tioned to that of the room they are intended to

PRIVATE DWELLING-HOUSES, 169

light ; for if they are hot large enough to convey
light to every corner, the room must be unequally
lighted, which is a great deformity and incon-
venience. In very large rooms, a greater number
of windows should prevent the necessity of
making them of a disproportionate and overgrown
size.

The dimensions of the smallest windows in the
rooms of private houses, however small such
houses, should never be less than three and a-half
feet wide, and from five and a-half to six feet high;
but in large and lofty rooms, the windows may be
four, five, and five and a-half feet wide, and their
height should be double their width whenever the
height of the ceiling admits of it. These dimen-
sions are proper for houses of any size in England,
and are also suitable to the Southern Colonies*
.When they are larger, they admit too much of the
cold air of winter.

Much has been said of late years on the advan-
tages, both to health, and for the sake of air and
light, of carrying windows up to the ceilings of
rooms. It is believed that a great deal of impure
and unwholesome air is constantly circulating and
confined within a room in all that space between
the ceiling and an imaginary horizontal line drawn
from the tops of the windows ; and I would recom-
mend that all windows be made as high as the
ceiling, so that in a room twelve feet high, the
windows should be nine feet high, and this is on
the rule that all window sills should be three feet
from the floor, which is the most convenient
height for a person sitting in a chair to see over*
Both upper and lower sashes should be made to
open.

170 IMPROVEMENT OF

The breadth of windows in all the stories should
be the same, but the different heights of the stories
make it necessary to vary the heights of the
windows in each story likewise.

For example, a house consisting of two stories
above the ground-floor, if the rooms of the latter
are twelve feet high, those of the first story should
not be less than nine feet, and the second story or
attic should not be less than eight feet. The
window sills being three feet above the floor in
each story, the windows should all be carried up
as high as the ceiling in each story.

Leaden casements for windows have such a
poor, mean, and miserable appearance, that they
should be abolished, except for the gothic windows
of churches. Leaden casements, indeed, are fit
for nothing else than gothic or pointed arched
windows, as they do not admit the light so freely,
or permit so clear a view through them as the
larger panes of glass in sashes; it is for this
reason as much as their poverty-struck appear-
ance, that they are unsuitable for the rooms of a
dwelling-house, unless such house be built in the
gothic style, and has window cases with pointed
arches ; and even then, I wish the inhabitant joy
of his gothic windows, for they are, to my mind,
the most cold, uncomfortable - looking, incon*
venient apertures that could be invented, let
alone their noisy rattling in the wind, the impos*
sibility of cleaning them or keeping them clean,
their obstruction of view, and their small openings
even in the hottest weather, when every other
house with sashes has the sashes opened as high
or as low as they will go, for the sake of air*

PRIVATE DWELLING-HOUSES. 171

When men begin to improve in their plans of
building houses, they must give up the leaden-
casement fashion in the churches, and adopt good
sized sash-windows.

The minimum size of a sash<-window, should
have four panes of glass abreast, each pane
thirteen inches by nine; and I will venture to
believe, that one such sash-window would afford
as much light as two leaden casements of the
same size.

Of all the taxes that were ever invented by one
man to annoy another, I consider the window-tax
the most atrocious. What right has one man, two
men, or any body of men to tax the air we breathe,
the water we drink, or the light of day, elements
and blessings received immediately from the hand
of God, — the immediate and spontaneous gift of a
bountiful Creator to all men, without distinction
of caste, colour, wealth, or poverty ? That Legis-
lature which first imposed the window-tax, cer-
tainly stepped beyond its duties, and played the
part of a tyrant. The nation did not dream that
its representatives would invent and inflict so
pbnoxious a tax as the window-tax, but it was
taken by surprise, and was not at that period
sufficiently alive or awakened to the evils of such
a tax. Why did not that same Legislature impose
a tax on the air we breathe, and appoint commis-
sioners and inspectors to measure the capacity of
every man's stomach to know how many cubic
feet of air he consumed daily, that it might be
taxed? The Legislature dared not do such a
thing, but it dared to inflict the punishment of
darkness in the houses of British people, without

172 IMPROVEMENT OF

their having committed any crime deserving the
privation of such invaluable and inestimable
blessings as light, air, and health ; for the build-
ing up and closing of many windows rendered
thousands of houses, stairs, passages, and rooms,
unhealthy and obscure. Many substitutes for the
window-tax might have been found,* especially
taxes on pernicious luxuries, pernicious customs,
and pernicious negligences. A good swinging tax
on gunpowder, hunting and racing horses, and
dogs, would do away with some cruelty, and be
productive of more revenue. It is bad enough to
tax our ale and porter, our shoes and candles, our
paper and bricks, and our timber and glass ; but
to tax the light of day was the tyranny of a
madman, and the cruelty of a tyrant.

CHIMNEYS AND FIRE-PLACES.

It is usual to build chimneys in England so that
the jambs of the fire-places project some eight,
twelve, or fifteen inches into the rooms, forming a
niche or recess on each side, which is the worst
possible custom, as it regards comfort, that can be
persisted in. In a large family, during the winter,
some of the members are necessarily obliged to
sit shivering every day or evening within these
recesses, hid up from the sight or enjoyment of
the fire , or if it so happens that the niches are
filled up with a bookcase, a chest of drawers, or a
cupboard, woe to the person who sits near it, for
there are constantly drafts of cold air blowing a
gale from every crevice of the closet or cupboard,

* All articles of gold, silver, copper, and brass, whether for use
or ornament, might be taxed ; — and a very rational tax too.

PRIVATE DWELLING-HOUSES. 173

causing rheumatic pains in the shoulder, the neck
and face, and also ear-aches.
• The mantel-piece and fire-place should therefore
always be built in a line with the wall, say within
the wall itself (causing the chimney-flue to project
at the back of the wall), which would abolish the
necessity of jambs and recesses, and enable every
person to see and enjoy the benefits of the fire.
The grate or stove should not be placed too for-
ward (as is now so universally the fashion), but
should stand exactly under the Jlv£y which would
cause the smoke to ascend it easily, actually at-
tracting a draught up it, and preventing the room
from being, what is commonly thought, a great
nuisance — ** a smoky room" — an inveterate enemy
to ladies' beautiful lace caps and dresses. Stoves
or grates should no longer be made with straight
bars : they should, for the future, all be made with
elliptical bars, flattened or straightened a little in
the centre or middle of the bars. Straight bars
should be abolished in grates.

Stoves and grates with hobs are far more useful
and comfortable than without, in spite of gentility
and fashion, but more especially in the humbler
dwellings of the majority of the nation, and a fire-
place should never have a less width than three
feet five inches, which should be the minimum,
and would always admit of a good stove grate with
roomy hobs.

The fixed height oiall fire-places should be three
feet nine inches. The width of a parlour fire-
place should be three feet five inches, and that of
a kitchen and labourer's cottage fire-place should
be four feet. Height of the hobs of a stove-grate

174 IMPROVEMENT OP

from the ground should be two feet. The bars
should be eighteen inches wide, and ten inches to
the back.* And, in defiance of fashion, a mantel-
piece should be fixed at the height of five feet six
inches. I give the foregoing as the best measure-
ments of a comfortable family fire-place.

As for cupboards, no private house should be
without them in every common sitting-room or bed-
room, and much less the cottage or house of a poor
man, to whose family, a cupboard is indispensable:
but cupboards should be formed by boarded parti-
tions at that end of the room the farthest from the
fire-place, and thus no seated person would have
to be disturbed every day, every evening, and
every moment by others resorting to them.

The Act of Parliament, passed in 1834, for the
better regulation of chimney-cleaners, and for the
safe construction of chimneys and flues, contains
the following clause : — " And whereas it is ex-
pedient that, for the better security from accidents
by fire or otherwise, an improved construction of
chimneys and fliies should hereafter be adopted ;
be it therefore enacted, that all withs and parti-
tions between any chimney or flue, shall be built
or rebuilt with brick or stone, and at least equal
to half a brick in thickness (this is not thick
enough. What is half a brick?); and every breast,
back, and with or partition of any chimney or
flue, shall be built of sound materials, and the.
joints of the work well filled in with good mortar
or cement, and rendered or stuccoed within ; and
also that every chimney or flue, hereafter to be

* These are my minimum dimensions of stove-grates.

PRIVATE DWELLING-HOUSES. 175

built or rebuilt, in any wall, or of greater length
than four feet out of any wall, not being a circular
chimney or flue of twelve inches in diameter, shall
be, in every section of the same not less than four-
teen inches by nine inches (I consider this mini-
mum too little : it ought to be eighteen by twelve) ;
and no chimney or flue shall be constructed with
any angle therein which shall be less obtuse than
an angle of 120 degrees, and every salient or pro-
jecting angle in any chimney or flue shall be
rounded ofi* four inches at the least ; upon pain of
forfeiture by the owner of such chimney or flue, of
the sum of 100/-, to be recovered, with full costs
of suit, by any person who shall sue for the same
in any of His Majesty's Courts of Record at West-
minster. Provided nevertheless, and be it enacted,
that nothing in this clause shall be construed to
prevent chimneys or flues being built at angles
with each other, of 90 degrees and more, such
chimneys or flues having therein proper doors or
openings not less than six inches square."

I entirely disapprove of this new fashion of
rendering or stuccoing the inside of flues or chim-
neys, because the mortar will, from various causes,
be always crumbling and falling down, thus leav-
ing the insides of the flues, rough and full of boles.
The minimum size of flues should be eighteen
inches by twelve, and instead of finishing them with
that useless operation plastering, they should be at
once built with good smooth bricks or stone, in--
vented for the purpose, and the joints very close
and well pointed with cement ; and they would
then endure a thousand years.

Chimneys should never be built back to back,

176 IMPROVEMENT OF

as this custom is one of the principal causes of
their smoking.

STAIRCASES.

The staircase of any house or cottage, however
humble^ should not be less than four feet wide :
this should be the absolute minimum width. The
breadth of the steps should never be more than
fifteen inches, nor less than twelve inches; and
the height or depth of each step should not be
more than five and a-half inches, nor less than
four: there should be no cases requiring excep-
tions to this rule.

" When the height of the story is given in feet,
and the height of the step in inches, throw the
feet into inches and divide it by the number of
inches the step is high, and the quotient will give
the number of steps required.*'*

It is a general maxim, that the greater breadth
of a step requires less height than one of less
breadth : thus, a step of twelve inches in breadth
will require a rise of five and a-half inches, and a
-step thirteen inches broad, requires a rise of five
inches, which may be taken as a standard, to
regulate those of other dimensions.

The best light for a staircase is a sky-light, but
when a sky- light cannot be made, the stairs should
at least be lighted by a window, however small,
and not be in darkness, as is too often the case in
small houses. Stair windows should be exempt
from taxation.

Stairs should always be built of stone, if pos*

♦ Nicholson's Builder's Practical Guide.

PRIVATE DWELLING-HOUSES. 177

sible, or of slate, an excellent material for the pur-
pose, or of large strong earthenware tiles, sup-
ported on brick walls. In case of fire, wooden
staircases have been known to be burned first, and
cut off the retreat of the unfortunate inmates.

It is a very general custom in England to build
the staircase of a poor man's house in the room on
the ground floor in which the family resides, a
custom which cannot be suflBciently condemned ;
for the smallness of the room is the universal com-
plaint, and when it is considered that the stairs,
narrow, straight, steep, and dangerous as they
generally are, project from the wall about three
feet into the room already too small, and extend
to the length of eight or ten feet along one side
thereof, it must be admitted by every generous
and considerate mind, that such a plan materially
trenches on the comforts of the dwelling-room.
The stairs, it is true, are generally hid by a parti-
tion and shut up by a door, besides having a cup-
board under them, but these additions are no ex-
cuse for taking off a single inch from the size of a
small room. I consider it a bad custom to build a
staircase in any room, even if the room be of ever
so large a size : thousands of poor families in the
country, are obliged to have a press-bed (a bed-
stead that shuts up) in the ground-floor room, and
there can be no privacy or comfort in sleeping
there when the staircase opens into the room.
Next to this stingy plan, I find fault with another
which is quite as bad, namely, nearly all the poor
people's houses in the kingdom, have the outer-
door opening directly into the very room in which
they sit. Let the winter be ever so severe, the

N

I78r IMPROVEMENT OF

scarcity of wood, peat, or coal, ever so pressing,
or the season ever so sickly, yet no person can go
in or come out of a poor man's house vrithout the
constant and frequent action of this wind-valve
(an outer-door to what ought to be an inner part of
the house), letting the warm air escape and admit-
ting the freezing winds. There is no comfort in
this stingy plan. If the houses of the middle
classes have their entrance -passages and halls,
and if they deem them necessary parts of their
dwelling, conducive to. convenience and comfort,
why should not the poorer classes also be allowed
to participate in them ? I have recommended the
universal adoption of more liberal dimensions for
rooms and stairs, and I wish I could persuade
landlords and builders, for the future, to build a
passage (or entrance-hall or ante-room, call it
what you please) in every cottage, and in every
house in the kingdom, which passage should not
he less than six ieet wide, the staircase to be built
in it, and the dwelling-room-door and outer-door
to open into it, a window being mad^ over the lat-,
ter to afford light.

ENTRANCE-HALLS.

No respectable house should be built without an.
entrance- hall, communicating with a central hall,
of thirty feet long, by twenty broad, the latter
open to the roof, lighted by a skylight, and having
galleries five feet wide, all round it on every story,
in which family-pictures and other paintings could
be hung ; and all the doors of the several bed-
rooms opening into the galleries. This is the
noble plan of the interior of a monastery at Goa,,

PRIVATE DWELLING-HOUSES. 179

which I visited ; and I have seen one, and oiily one
private house in England like it, and a very com^
fortable, convenient, and noble appearance it had,
I may say delightful. (The central-hall, or quad-
rangle of the monastery was of an immense size,
open to the sky, having no roof, and the gallery
ten feet wide, covered by a verandah, into which
all the doors of the numerous cells opened ; — an
admirable plan for a college or university in
Australia's fine climate.)

FLOORS.

The ground-floors of all houses and cottages, as
well as the first-story floors, should be made with
stone, if that material be procurable. So frequent
are -the occurrences of fires, and so dreadful are
the losses of life therefrom, that landlords and
builders are severely to be blamed for making
wood-floors when stone can be had. In Western
Yorkshire, the quarries of fine sandstone, or free-
stone, are innumerable, indeed, nearly the whole
country in the neighbourhood of Blackstone Edge
consists of that rock-formation, and the natural
consequence is, that nearly all the ground-floors^
and many of the first floors of the houses in the
West Riding are formed of excellent stone. A
description of the floor of a small parlour will
serve to explain the plans of all. The room is
nearly fifteen feet square, a beam one foot thick
crosses it in the middle, on which the ends of six
fine slabs of sandstone are placed close together,
three on one side and three on the other, their
outer ends resting on the walte, into which they
^re inserted, about six inches, (they are laid down

N 2^

180

IMPROVEMENT OF

when the walls are built up to the required height
of the floor). The stones are each eight feet long,
by five and a quarter broad, and five or six inches
thick. The small number of crevices between the
stones are neatly filled up with fine mortar ; and
such a floor will last a thousand years, requiring
only one new beam at very distant intervals of
time. Here is no danger of fire, only one timber i&
required ; and being covered with a carpet is just
as comfortable as a boarded floor. It is smooth
enough to dance upon, it is cool in summer, warm
in winter, and is sooner and easier cleaned than
a boarded floor, and is moreover not liable to cer-
tain kinds of insects and vermin, as the former is.

There are innumerable hills of sandstone-form-
ation in various parts of England, so that there is
no excuse for not having all the houses in London,
and other cities and towns, built with stone floors.
Only six stones six inches thick, suflSces for a
room fifteen feet square ; and even if they had to be
fetched two hundred miles (from Blackstone Edge
to London,) it ought to be done. Distance and ex*
pense ought to be scorned in objects obviously cal-
culated for the comfort and safety of human lives.

In laying the beams and joists of boarded floors,
the utmost care should be taken not to insert the
ends of the timber into the wall too near the chim-
ney flues, and still more care to let no joist go
through the wall at the back of a fire-place ; for
with all a bricklayer's care and attention to fill up
well the interstices between the bricks with mortar,
yet there will occur many rough places and small
holes, into which the smoke and soot penetrate,
and when this ignites from chance sparks or other

PRIVATE DWELLING-HOUSES. 181

accidents, it will go on insidiously smouldering
within the wall till it reaches the end of the dry
wood, setting the latter on fire, unknown to any-
body in the house, and in this way thousands of
houses have caught fire. An instance occurred
within my own observation, of a joist, which the
builders had negligently inserted through the wall
at the back of the fire-place, catching fire, and
communicating to a wooden staircase, which was
much burnt, and would probably have occasioned
the loss of life had the occurrence taken place in
the night instead of the evening.

Large slabs of slate, six inches thick, would
make capital floors for upper stories^ especially if
supported on iron joists.

ROOFS.

Sloping roofs generally consist of the following
pieces of timber : —

Beamsj called tie-beams^ extending from wall to
wall, horizontally. Principal rafters of the roof,
fastened in pairs by the tie-beams, every two op-
posite rafters being connected by one tie-beam:
the use of them is to prevent the walls from being
pushed outwards by the weight of the roof.

Purlines are horizontal timbers, notched on the
principal rafters.

Common rafters are thin pieces of timber, placed
at equal distances upon the purlines, and parallel
to the principal rafters : upon the common rafters
are nailed the boarding to which the slates are
fixed ; or the splines and laths, to which the tiling
is fixed.

Pole-plates are pieces of timber resting on the

182 IMPROVEMENT OP

ends of the tie-beams, and supporting the lower
ends of the common rafters.

A vertical piece of timber, called a king-post^
standing on the middle of the tie-beam, supports
the ridge of the roof; and an oblique piece, called
a strut or brace, framed below into the king-post,
and above into the principal rafters, supports the
latter, and prevents them from bending in with
the weight of the tiling.

Pieces of timber, called wall-plates, are always
to be laid on the walls of a house previous to the
laying on of the roof, in order to distribute equally
the pressure of the roof, and to bind the walls
together.

The pitch, or angle of slated roofs at Goa, in
India, (where it pours incessant and very heavy
torrents of rain during the monsoon,) are generally
four-sixths or five-sixths of the span, and some of
the private houses of the wealthy are even more
steep, and almost resemble the small spires of a
country-church, and are admirably adapted to
carry off the rain-water with velocity.

The height of roofs at the present time in
England, is rarely above one-third of the span,
and I take the liberty of saying, that the slope of
such roofs is not steep enough ; for, whatever the
consequences of ** sliding snow stopping up the
gutters, and overflows of water from heavy rains,"
there would neither be so many leaky roofs, nor so
many accidents to tiling, if they were more steep.
And as to making the slopes of roofs different,
according to their materials^ I see no necessity or
benefit in making such differences : the inclination
of a roof to the horizon, whatever the covering may

PRIVATE DWELLING-HOUSES. ISS

, , . • - ■

te, whether of latge slates, ordinar)'^ slates, second
slates, plain tiles, or pantiles, ought invariably to
be at forty-five degreies, or one-half the span. I
have Siifiered a good deal in the course of my life
from leaky roofs, and it has been a constant ob-
servation with me, that the steeper the slope of the
roof the drier the house. The best materials of the
best Ipoofs are liable to leak, if heavy and con-
tinued rain cannot run off quickly ; and when a
tiled or slated roof is almost flat, the water is sure
to penetrate by being blown under the slates by
the wind.

The generality of gutters along the eaves of
roofs are much too shallow and too narrow : they
might in all closes be made at least twelve inches
deep, and the same wide, without presenting any
unsightly appearance. And when houses have
parapet-walls, the gutters might be of double these
dimensions.

No house in the country should be without gut-
ters, as experience proves that where there are
none, the Walls of the roomi^ are damp inside.

I strongly recommend the Australians to have
terraced or flat roofs to their houses, in preference
to sloped oneSi Flat roofs may be made with
either copper, lead, or chunam.*

• The Friend of Australia^ page 270, contains the following
note : — ** Terraced roofs in India are formed in the following man-
ner ; viz. the joists being neatly planed, and moulded at the lower
edges, are laid across the house or room, on the top of the walls^
with an interval of six or seven inches between each joist, and then
a process like vaulting is begun ; namely, bricks are laid vertically
on their edges^ dide by side, upoii the joists, firmly fixed together
with strong chunaih (mortar)> the same as in turning the arch of a
vault, but, of course, without forming an arch ; and every crevice

184 IMPROVEMENT OF

When sloped roofs are required they should be
lofty, like those of the Portugueze, at Goa, which
are so well adapted to a monsoon climate ; but
they should also be constructed with extra strength,
to withstand the high winds of a warm climate.

In laying joists for flat-terraced roofs, the pre-
sent method of letting the ends of the joists into
notches or mortices an inch or two deep in the
sides of the beam must be avoided : the ends of
the joists must be placed upon the beam, and if they
even overlap it, so much the better ; and the joists
must all be kept in their places and fixed by little
pieces of square timber, (exactly the length of the
interval between each joist,) placed between each
joist upon the beam, which I shall christen with
the name oi joist-wedges. This would be a much
better method of laying joists, even for boarded
floors in England ; for I have seen a whole row of
joists which had their ends slipped or drawn out
of the notches in the beam in consequence of the
wall having warped out of its perpendicular ; and
but for being held together by the boards, the
whole would have come to the ground. Such an
accident could not possibly happen to joists lying
upon a beam and overlapping it, unless indeed

between the bricks must be carefully filled with mortar. When
this first layer (of bricks) is dry and firm, a coat of strong chunam
(mortar), mixed with large coarse sand, should be plastered all
over the bricked roof, two inches thick, and gradually, as it drieSy
it should be gently trodden firm, and all the cracks closed. When
dry, a second, but thinner coat of mortar, say about half an inch
thick, should be plastered over the first, and trodden carefully as
it dries. A third and last coat, of very fine chunam, or cement, is
to be laid thin over the roof, and polished as it dries ; which finishes
the roof."

PRIVATE DWELLING-HOUSES. 185

the very walls of the house were to fall down : a
slight warping of the wall, as in the accident just
described, would only affect the joists a few
inches, but would not draw them totally oflF the
beam.

COPING STONES.

It is a custom in most countries, to finish the
tops of the walls of houses, with a last tire or layer
of long slabs of stone, called coping. Having
paid a good deal of attention at different periods
of my life, to the causes of leaky roofs and damp
walls, I discovered, that merely coping the top of
a wall or parapet of a house, will not prevent rain-
water from insinuating itself into the wall, if the
roof or gutter be below the coping. And as it is
invariably the case that the gutter and lower
edges of the roof, are lower than the top of the
parapet, I lay it down as a maxim well worthy of
universal adoption, that all house-walls should
have two copings ; one, some few feet below the
other, built into the wall. The following is the
process or rule I offer for the guidance of those
who will adopt this novelty in building. As soon
as the walls are up as high as is necessary for the
wall-plates, then lay upon them a tire of sound
stone coping, exactly the breadth of the wall,
which effectually covering and guarding it from
being penetrated by water, the wall-plates may
then be laid on this first coping, the roof be
finished, and the gutter and parapet be built up,
and the latter be finished with the second coping.
I defy any rain to get into the middle of a wall
finished after this method. " But it will cost more

186 IMPROVteMENt OF

money," says the builder. Away with such an
objection, people should not build if they cannot
afford it.

CELLARS.

In recommending that every house and cottage
in the kingdom should have an underground cellar
for coals and beer, I have only one improvement
to suggest, viz. that the floors of all cellars should
be made on an inclined plane, say a slope of about
six inches in twelve feet, which would cause the
slop to run down to the lower end where there
should be a dish-tile to carry it off into a drain ;
and thus the floors would always be dry, which at
present is very seldom the case. Innumerable
robberies of coals occur every winter in the coun-
try where the cottages are built without cellars.

FRONT GARDENS.

It is the fashion in . civilized countries and
especially in Great Britain, to build most of the
respectable country houses and villas along the
sides of the high-roads, sufficiently back from the
road as to be out of the reach of the dust ; some
Standing in parks, others in shrubberies, and many
more only a few yards distant from the road, which
space is usually termed a Front CJourt, ornamented
for the most part with evergreens and flowers. I
wish this custom were more general than it is, for
it is grievous to see how many thousands of the
cottages of the poor, along the roads all over the
kingdom, which have not a foot of ground attached
to them, not even a little front court ! while on the
other hand, it is delightful to see those cottages

PRIVATE DWELLING-HOUSES. 187

which have front-courts ; for generally speaking,
you see them ornamented with the honeysuckle,
the jessamine, and the rose, with sometimes a
vine climbing over the door or shading a rural
seat : the little divisions of the court occupied by
vegetables and the borders with flowers ; and in
some sheltered corner a bee-hive or two, all these
little things affording a rational recreation and a
profitable employment to some of the members of
the poor man's family. There really should be
some compulsory law passed, to force landlords to
attach a small piece of ground to eax^h cottage in
the country after the year 1844, for they will never
do it unless they are compelled, uniformly and
universally. All ground to be let on building-
leases should be obliged to be extended to such a
sufficient distance back from the road, as to allow
a front court or garden to each house, of at least
forty feet in length and as wide as the house it
belongs to. I say a front garden in preference to
a back garden ; at the same time, if landlords
chose to attach larger pieces of garden-ground to
the backs of their cottages they should do so, but
there should still he a front court to each, hy com-
pulsion. It is not wise or politic to give a number
of poor men a large piece of garden-ground at a
distance from their homes unless they lived in a
town ; a custom recently obtaining among some of
the most benovolent noblemen and gentlemen of
the kingdom ; because labour makes men thirsty,
and in their way homeward late in the evening the
said distant garden may make them drop in at
some beer-shop where they will run up a debt by
the end of each week, whereas, if they had been

188 IMPROVEMENT OF

digging in a garden at homey they would satisfy
their thirst with any thing, milk, tea, or water
that their homes afforded, and the sight of the
beer-shop would not be their temptation.

VILLAGES versus SINGLE COTTAGES.

It is a disputed question whether it is better to
congregate the poor into villages, or to build for
them, cottages all over the country and scatter
them in every direction. In my humble opinion,
it is better to collect them along the sides of every
high road, by building rows of good substantial
handsome, comfortable cottages according to the
rules here oflfered, which rows should never con-
sist of more than twelve cottages in a row nor less
than two, i. e. no cottage-family should be with-
out a neighbour. They should all have front
courts, and if the landlords choose, back gardens
also. But rows of cottages should not be carried
on in continuity, otherwise it would quite shut out
the view of the country from the traveller and
lover of nature: they should stand at intervals
from each other of four hundred yards, along the
sides of the roads, one row on one side the road to
face the open interval between two rows on the
other side the road, so that every row on either
side would stand opposite an open interval, mak- .
ing only a short distance from one pile of houses
to the next, which would thus become a means of
guarding the roads from the numerous robberies
committed on single travellers. It is a bad custom
to scatter cottages all over a country, for it is this
that has caused every gentleman's estate in the
kingdom to be cut up by a thousand different foot-

PRIVATE DWELLINa-HOUSES. 189

paths crossing each other in the most disagreeable
manner and situation, which, length of time have
rendered public property, to the great and ever-
lasting annoyance of every person who buys an
estate : not to mention many other obvious objec-
tions to a scattered peasantry which I need not
name. Cottages should not be built back to back.
But when a country grows too populous, the
last resort is to build quadrangular villages for the
labouring people at every fourth mile on the high
roads, in which the cottages, on my plan, can
stand close together, each having its pretty front
court and larger back garden. Each village should
be built in the form of a parallelogram or open
oblong square, their longest sides parallel to the
high road and about 500 yards or a quarter of a
mile long, and the two ends about 200 yards long
the breadth of the square, which would afford suf-
ficient room for a weekly market or annual fair ;
and the two entrances (there should be only two,
one at each end, adjoining the high road which
should pass through the village) should have gates
or toll-bars to be shut at night, erected under
triumphal arches.

CLOACINA.

One of the most signal disgraces, in the present
era, to landlords and builders, is the shameful
neglect of out-offices for the poor, in most parts of
the country. I have seen in my travels in England
and in Wales great numbers of cottages without
any building for the out-offices, whilst others
possess such edifice but without roof or door, and
at the same time their condition indescribably

190 IMPROVEMENT OF

disgusting, and the uucomfortable exposure of my
fellow-creatures under these circumstances, is as if
all sense of propriety was set at nought and the
public feeling to be shocked with impunity, — these
wretched buildings being placed in the most con-
spicuous situations close to the road side and in
every public thoroughfare. I would have the law
to inflict a heavy penalty on every landlord who
builds a cottage without attaching to it a roofed
privy with a good door, and a safe, substantial,
and cor^-erf vault or pit, of certain fixed dimensions,
say four feet deep and eight feet square ; the pit
to be always outside the walls, 1 need not say
more on this most digraceful feature of my native
land.

CLAY OR EARTH HUTS.

Mud huts or sun-burnt clay cottages (so common
in Ireland) should be abolished out of a Christian
land. It is a shame to see what pig-styes and
worse than pig-styes, thousands of our fellow-
creatures are obliged to live in, through their own
poverty; habitations in which, neither the rain
from above nor the damp from below is excluded ;
where the light is only admitted from the door-
way or the smoke-hole and not by windows ; and
which afford no shelter from either the heats of
summer or the chilling winds of winter. Some
legislative enactment should absolutely be passed
not only to prevent landlords, owners of land,
builders, or any other person, from building any
more mud huts, but to compel all who build,, to
build according to the very reasonable rules ami
precepts I have laid dawn so plainly in these

PRIVATE DWELLING-HOUSES. IQl

pages. If it be said, as has been said before, that
any laws or legislation on the subject of building,
would cramp the hand of industry, trench on the
liberty of the subject, and prevent very poor
builders from the only chance of acquiring pro-
perty, and so forth, I say and so it oughts so long
as men persist in customs ruinous to the health
and comforts of their fellow men. In the name of
patience, what are laws made for, but the greater
comfort of the greater number ? There is scarcely
a man in the United Kingdoms, who has not, who
does not, or who will not, make observations and
complaints on the "smallness of his rooms" and
the great inconvenience thereof, whenever any-
stranger or visitor elicits the subject. I repeat
again and again, that the minimum size of a room
ought to be fifteen feet square in any part of the
British dominions, and it should be made com-
pulsory by law. It should be fixed. Surely, a
room of this size is not too large for a single person
to inhabit in the summer season in a cold climate ;
and in the winter should it be considered a cold
room, the occupier might have a folding-skreen,
which if he pleased, he might ornament with
pictures. Small rooms, when inhabited by poor
people, are generally nests of filth, dirt, and
disease, by reason of the want of suiBcient space
to remove furniture while cleaning, and every body
is in the way of each other. Small rooms and
pig-styes for human beings are curses to the health
of millions, and therefore this pernicious and
stingy custom of building should be driven out
of the world by legislation.

192

GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS.

BRIDGES.

No bridge in the country, whatever its situation,
or however small the river, rivulet, or brook, over
which it is built, should be of a less total width
than thirty feet within the parapet walls ; of which
space, it should be compulsory to have a footpath on
each sidCj of five feet wide each, which would allow
the road in the middle to be twenty feet wide.
Whether a bridge be built with iron, stone, brick,
wood, or rope, is not an object worth half the
consideration that the width of the bridge is, as it
affects the safety of people's lives ; for it is dis-
graceful to the local authorities (of many districts
in civilized England, who have the ordering of
these matters,) to see the risks of life and limb to
which all passengers are liable, and frequently
only escape by a " hair's-breadth," when passing
narrow bridges, built in remote places, and in the
outskirts of towns and villages, in a dark night,
from equestrians at speed, gigs, mail and stage
coaches, yea, and even from heavy waggons, when
such bridges have no footpaths over them. I
have witnessed numerous instances of danger
on such bridges, and I therefore trust the Legis-
lature will compel the widening of all narrow
bridges, and the making of footpaths over them,
which paths should be paved, wherever stone is
procurable.

PLANS OF TOWNS AND STREETS.*

In planning and laying out new towns, the

* For our Australian Colonies.

PLANS OF TOWNS AND STREETS. 193

engineer should be well acquainted with the
climate of the locality, and know the quarter of
the compass from whence the most prevailing or
most healthy winds blow ; and in the direction of
such winds the principal^ or main streets should
be traced, so that they might be enfiladed by
those winds ; these main streets should not be of
a less width than thirty yards ; and they should
be planted with standard mulberry trees on each
side, when of greater width. The cross streets
should intersect the principal ones at right angles,
at such distance from each other as to make all
and each of the sections of the town a quarter of
a mile square^ or 450 yards. These cross streets
should not be of a less width than twenty-six
yards.

Every house ought to have a backyard or court,
and every street should have a verandah on each
side, in front of the houses, and of the same width
as the footpaths, say eight, ten, or twelve feet wide,
proportional to the width of the street.

The enjoyment of a verandah is well known in
India, and other sunny climates, and would be
equally felt in Australia, especially during the
mid-day sun of summer, or the torrent of the rainy
season ; it is also a very agreeable adjunct to
a house in England, as those persons can testify
who have one.

All churches and places of worship should stand
by themselves in the centre, or on one side of
handsome open squares, not joined to any other
building, but accessible all round ; and should not
have burial grounds near them, as the latter, in
course of years, and at particular seasons, are

o

194 GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS.

known to create an unhealthy state of the atmo*
sphere. Open situations for churches afford an
agreeable display of their architecture ; but they
should not be built in the middte of a street.
Burial grounds or cemeteries should be situated at
the outer angles of towns upon dry and slightly
rising ground, if procurable, and if conducted on
the plan of the newly erected public cemeteries,
would be a great and universal convenience.

All the entrances to every town should be
through a park, that is to say, a belt of park of
about half a mile in width, should entirely sur-
round every town, excepting such parts or sides
as are washed by a river or lake. This would
greatly contribute to the health and pleasure of
the inhabitants; it would render the surround-
ing prospects beautiful, and give a magnificent
appearance to a town, from whatever quarter
viewed.

Long, straight avenues of tress should be ex-
cluded from the park, as only tending to obstruct
the prospect at various points ; the only avenue
of trees necessary for equestrians and carriages,
should be round the outer circumferential boun-
dary of the park, and of course extending entirely
round the park and town. Beyond the park,
the villas, country houses, and gardens might
begin, and more distantly the farms.

The land of a newly settled country being
Government property, there cannot be that objec-
tion to the adoption of a regular system for the
plans of towns and buildings that there is in
an old country ; neither can the execution of a
system adopted at the beginning be attended with

PLANS OF TOWNS AND STREETS. 195

inconvenience to the public, or be complained of
as a grievance by private individuals, which is
the case sometimes with modern improvements.
It is wise to adopt a system, and when adopted it
should be made law, and after it had been en-
forced a few years it would become custom.

In a warm climate, the roo& of houses should be
flat, and not sloped or thatched ; the latter are
very liable to take fire, and sloped roofs prevent
the possibility of enjoying a real luxury, namely —
an evening lounge on them during the summer
season. Terraced roofs should have an insensible
declivity, (or several if the flat roof be extensive,)
just sufficient to give the rain water a course,
which, falling into pipes, should be conducted into
subterranean cisterns, as is the plan in Italy,
which would supply the family in each dwelling
with water the whole year till the return of the
rainy season,

The rafters of roofs and joists of floors should
be exposed, and not covered over with stucco, or
lath and plaster ceilings ; and they should be
painted or varnished, to preserve them from the
latent attacks of white ants, or being infested by
other vermin.

Houses should not exceed two stories high in
Australia, which country, like India, is subject to
violent winds at the setting in of the rainy season,
which endanger lofty buildings. The walls of
houses, for the same reason, should never be less
than two feet thick on the ground-floor, and
eighteen or twenty-one inches on the floor above.
A battlement or parapet is invariably formed
round a terraced roof, by carrying up the walls of

o 2

196 GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS.

the house about two or three feet higher than the
terrace, and it is strengthened at short intervals
by an additional thickness, in the shape of small
ornamental pilasters.

A small punkah or swinging-fan should hang
from the ceiling of each of the principal sitting-
rooms of a house, to be used occasionally to ven-
tilate them during the hot season, and it might be
kept in motion by the application of some simple
machinery with weights the same as the pendulum
of a clock.

All houses in villages and in the rural districts
both of the rich and poor, should have a piazza or
verandah, round at least three sides; for during
the wet season it is a great comfort, and it softens
the too strong glare of light in the summer. The
roofs of verandahs should certainly be flat or ter-
raced, so that they might serve as an open balcony
or gallery round the upper rooms.

Kitchens or cook-rooms should not form part of
a dwelling-house in Australia, but they should be
separate and detached buildings, consisting of two
rooms on the ground, with a terraced roof and a
narrow verandah round them: this building, being
placed immediately at one of the angles of the
dwelling-house, and touching the verandah of the
latter, would neither intercept any prospect from
the windows, nor be at such an inconvenient dis-
tance as to cool the victuals during its conveyance
from the fire to the table. These two rooms
might be eighteen or twenty feet square ; one the
cooking room, and the other the washing and
brew-house. The height of this building should
be proportional to that of the house, especially the

PLANS OF TOWNS AND STREETS. 197

chimney, otherwise the smoke might descend into
the chambers. The smell of the kitchen in a dry
and warm climate, besides many other inconve-
niences, makes it an absolute necessity to have it
a detached building.

Every wealthy inhabitant of Australia should
have a bathing-room, and a magazine for grain
(wheat) in his house, each about ten or twelve feet
square. The bath should be built with masonry
at one side within the bathing-room ; it should not
be less than six feet by three, and three feet deep,
and the bottom just above the level of the floor of
the room, with a small plug-hole to let out the
water; plastered or stuccoed with cement inside,
and the water led into it by wooden or lead pipes.
Bathing is one of the greatest preservers of health
in a warm climate, not to say indispensable ; and
it is, moreover, a real luxury. The water should
be made tepid, or about seventy-seven degrees, if
the bather does not find cold water agree with his
health.

The natives of Morocco, and other African na-
tions, preserve their wheat under ground in some
dry situation, where it has been found perfectly
sound after sixteen years' keeping ; and as the
climate of Australia resembles that of Northern
Africa, the settlers in that colony would do well to
build a small magazine in their houses, in such a
situation as would be safe from damp and from the
outer air ; it should be a walled room of brick or
stone, and well coated with cement within, and
the only entrance a trap-door at the top, opening
in the floor of another room. This magazine
might be ten feet square, and fifteen feet deep ;

198 GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS.

and here they might hoard their wheat against
seasons of scarcity.

To preserve wheat for many years, the atmo-
spheric air must be excluded from it.

PUBLIC SEWERS.

No street or row of houses should ever be suf-
fered to be begun or continued in England without
the builder or proprietor also began and continued
the public sewer or main drain thereof; and this
main sewer should invariably be in front of the
houses, and from thirty to forty feet distant from
the foundations.

Sewers should be made straight wherever that
is practicable, and not curved ; and the inclination
or fall should be at least one inch to every ten
feet.

Main sewers of the first class should be of an
oval form, ten feet in height, by seven feet in
width in the inside, and they should increase in
height and width in proportion to their length and
the number of houses they drain, or the quantity
of flooded water to be carried off*. The crown of
the arch and the invert should be two bricks and
a-half thick, and the walls should be three bricks
thick, and bonded. Wherever the situation will
admit of sufficient depth of sewer, there should be
from four to five feet of depth between the upper
part of the crown of the arch and the surface of
the road or street.

Grand streets of the width of one hundred feet
should always have two main sewers of the fore-
going dimensions along them, and the floors of
the sewers should be horizontal, (notwithstanding

PUBLIC SEWERS. 199

any inverted arch underneath,) so as to admit of
laying down two lines of temporary iron rails, for
two trucks to pass each other in the sewer, when
workmen are digging and leading out the mud or
sediment.

Second-class sewers should also be oval, eight
feet high, five feet wide, the upper arch and lower
invert one brick-and-a-half thick, and the walls
two bricks thick, and bonded.

Third-class sewers should be oval, seven feet
high, four feet wide, and the walls and arches of
the same thickness as those of the second-class,
and bonded.

All branch sewers from small streets containing
less than one hundred houses, should be as high
as the height of a man standing upright, and
three feet in width in the clear, and bonded.

I would not allow of any other class of public
sewers, or any of less dimensions and less strength
than the foregoing. I know they will be thought
preposterous, and of unnecessary strength, and
that the expense will be objected to ; but let it be
recollected that these works are not temporary
affairs ; they are wanted for many generations to
come ; and the stronger they are built, the greater
is the firmness of the streets, and the security of
the houses from shaking.

The bricks for sewers should be of the hard
burnt or almost vitrified kind, and not red bricks ;
and the mortar one part of strong stone lime, and
two parts of clean sand, and very well mixed and
pounded.

No situation can be so proper in a city or town,
as the centre of every street for its main sewer,

200 GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS.

and it should be of sufficient depth under the
pavement to drain the lowest cellars of the houses.

Branch sewers should enter a main line by a
curved, and not an angular junction.

Every house in a street or row should be com-
pelled to have an under-ground communication
with the main sewer, under a heavy penalty for
neglect. The law at present provides no means
of compelling the builders of new streets to pro-
vide them with proper drainage, nor even of en-
forcing communication with a sewer when made ;
but it is to be hoped that such a law will soon be
made, and that it will be sufficiently stringent to
prevent inhuman petty tyrants from undertaking
speculations in building, who cannot command
these and many other useful improvements.

There should be side-entrances to the main
sewers in every street, constructed at regular
distances of five hundred feet, and extending to
the foot pavement, in which there should be trap-
doors for the purpose of enabling men to enter the
sewers to cleanse them.

In towns which have rivers passing through
them, the tilth and sediment of the sewers should
not be allowed to run into the rivers, but it should
be received into covered pits, made on purpose, at
various distances, and be emptied once a-year, if
necessary, and sold as manure. Or it should be
conducted through a great iron sewer, laid along
each bank of a river, and the filth and dirty water
could thus be carried a mile or two beyond a town
and lower down the stream before it entered a
river at all.

In consequence of the dirty habits of the poorer

RIVERS IN TOWNS. 201

inhabitants of the city of York, and the culpable
negligence of the owners of houses in not having
erected a cabinet for each house, the river Ouse is
almost as filthy as a privy.

RIVERS IN TOWNS.

It should be a standing rule, a standing law of
the land by Act of Parliament, that no building
of any kind, either public or private, shall ever be
built or erected immediately on the margin, or
shores, or sides, or banks, of any canal, or river,
or piece of water within any town (bridges ex-
cepted), whether such canal, or river, or piece of
water, or any part thereof, be either public or pri-
vate property: and that all houses, warehouses,
stores, magazines, granaries, wharf-roofs, sheds, or
any other kind of buildings, cranes, weighing-
machines, &c., &c., public or private, shall never
stand near any water within a town, unless such
water be a dock, or basin, or an inlet cut from a
river.

All existing buildings, public or private, and all
manner of obstructions now standing on the im-
mediate banks of all rivers, canals, and waters,
public or private, except in docks, basins, or inlets
cut from a river or canal, should be pulled down
as soon as the present leases and interests in them
shall have ceased and expired, and should be re-
built at a distance of not less than forty yards
from the water, if they are to be rebuilt at all :
and the sides of all rivers and canals, and the
ground along their banks, to the width of the said
forty yards, should, if private property, be pur-

202 GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS.

chased by government, and be declared public
thoroughfare, and belong to the public for ever.

A river-street should be made and paved, along
the sides of all rivers and canals within towns ;
and seats, sheltered from rain, should be placed at
regular distances ; and wherever any inlet or cut,
leads from a river or canal, to any wharf or ware-
house in any dock or busin, it should be bridged
over for the river-street, high enough for barges to
pass underneath, and stairs should be made down
to the river or canal at certain distances.

It is unnecessary to point out the many evils
and disadvantages to the population in all localities
where there is a river or canal within a town, and
where the foregoing privilege does not exist (wit-
ness both the banks of the Thames all through
London, the rivers and canals of provincial towns,
the wharf of the Tower of London, the canals of
Hamburg during the late awful conflagration^
&c., &c.)

Having, in a previous page, touched on thi«
subject, these last observations are intended to
apply to every town in the kingdom in which there
is a river or a canal.

Docks and Basins should be dug below a town,
and not above or within a town, when it can be
avoided.

There is another subject, in connexion with
rivers in towns, which I shall hint at here. Rivers
should be kept as wide as possible from bank to
bank, and their navigation should be kept open
and the passage free from obstacles, at the same
time that very strict laws should be enforced to
prevent them from being filled up by that very te-

RIVERS IN TOWNS. 203

prehensible custom of throwing ballast overboard,
as well as all kinds of rubbish.

Vessels, of whatever size, large or small, should
never be permitted to moor in a river, for the pur-
pose of unloading, or loading, or for any thing else,
as it is the non-observance of this rule that causes
rivers to be blocked up with all kinds of craft, and
rubbish being continually thrown from them into
the water, imperceptibly but surely, renders them
shoal in course of time ; and then there is a great
expense incurred in deepening them again. A
river should be viewed in the same light as a
public road or street on land : suppose hundreds
of waggons were perpetually stopping and stand-
ing in lows or tiers, loading and unloading in the
middle of Cheapside or the Strand, what incon-
venience, difficulty, and danger there would be for
carriages to thread their way through 'these to
streets thus blocked up.

Basins and Docks are the only places where
vessels of every size should be suffered to lie, and
as this is a maxim that will not be disputed, so
also should warehouses and wharfs be removed
from the sides of rivers, and be built round
basins and docks.

It has been a general remark, for a great many
years, that all our rivers are becoming shoal, and
that the more shallow they grow as they approach
their embouchure into the sea, the higher their
streams rise, till at length the waters of some of
them are nearly on a level with their banks, and
the latter, in several instances, are higher than the
general surface of the adjacent land : this is espe*
cially the case with the Thames, the Humber, and

204 GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS. *

some others. The process of filling up will go on
till they overflow or break through their banks,
and then they will form new beds for themselves,
at the expense of the destruction of millions of
property. This result may not happen till a dis-
tant period, but still it is sure to happen unless a
remedy be applied in proper time to prevent it.

Now, I think permanent employment for at
least twenty thousand men every year, might be
found in the national work of widening and deep-
ening all the rivers in Great Britain and Ireland.*
If the wages of that number of labourers be fixed
at half-a-crown per man per diem, for 365 days,
and the superintendence, cartage, tools, and other
contingencies be reckoned, an annual Parliamen-
tary grant of one million sterling, would eventually
save Great Britain from so great a national mis-
fortune as the filling up of our rivers and har-
bours.

Neither the officers of the Trinity House nor
the commissioners who have the oversight of our
rivers, can undertake any great work like that of
widenhig and deepening the whole course of any
one river ; and it can only be done by a special
power and a special grant of money.

FAIRS AND CATTLE MARKETS.

Each town in the kingdom ought to have one
or more public fields, for the sole purpose of hold-
ing fairs for beasts, toy-fairs, and cattle markets.
Horses and cattle are brought into the streets of
many towns, and allowed to stand there for sale,
to the great annoyance of the inhabitants, and the

• River mud is worth from 7s. up to 30«. a-load.

PAIRS AND CATTLE MARKETS. 205

covering of the streets with filth and offensive
effluvia. How much better it would be if all this
business were transacted just outside a town,
where there would be space to try the horses, and
more room to inspect the cattle, which then need
not be crowded together.

Fairs for show and pleasure are also frequently
held in market-places and streets of towns ; and I
insert the following paragraph relating to Hudders-
field Fair, as being an example which it would be
well if every other town would follow-: — *^The
shows and booths, sights and wonders, were more
numerous than usual, and were with much pro-
priety located in the back green, to the gratifi-
cation of the inhabitants generally, and of those of
King-street in particular, who were thus relieved
from the noise and confusion usually inflicted on
them when such exhibitions were located in the
shambles. From seven to eight o'clock on Satur-
day evening there could not have been less than
thirty-thousand persons in the streets and fair."

If show and toy-fairs were everywhere held in
an open field or waste piece of ground, outside of
a town, it would not only be more pleasant to the
townspeople, and serve as an agreeable change
and recreation to walk to them ; but they would
attract more respectable customers, (who dislike
the shambles, and markets, and streets blocked
up,) and would also afford more space for regular
streets of booths, and more elbow-room for the
crowds of pleasure-seekers ; and during all the rest
of the year, the waste piece of ground or field
(which should never be less than twelve acres,)
might be used as the general public cricket-ground

206 GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS.

of the town or village, as well as an archery, if
there be a society of archers; and a tall mast
should be fixed in the ground, having at its top two
or three yards or cross sticks, on which twenty or
thirty wooden birds should be loosely stuck upon
pegs, for the archers to aim at, as is the fashion in
France, where I saw a handsome silver vase won
by knocking oflf the bird from the highest point of
the mast itself.

PUMPS AND WELLS.

Every house in the kingdom should have a well
or a pump in some part of the premises : this is
more especially necessary in villages and small
towns, where the water is not laid on by pipes, as
I have frequently witnessed much scrambling for
this necessary article at the few springs and
scanty rills, which afford the only supply in some
places. Many people have dug for water, and
dug deep too, without success, and have given it
up as a bad job ; I shall therefore, just state the
two following facts, which have occurred to my
own experience, as they may give some people a
useful hint on the subject. A small pond on my
brother's farm at Beckenham, Essex, having
failed one dry summer, excited a good deal of sur-
prise, as well as inconvenience, as it was always
thought to be a spring, and supplied the house
with pure water, which could not be had from the
large pond. They found it necessary to dig for
water in the bottom of the pond, and after digging
about four or five feet, came to a bed of strong
yellow clay, but found no water ; they continued
digging till they broke through the stratum of clay

PUMPS AND WELLS. 207

into a bed of yellow gravelly sand, when a flow of
beautiful clear water immediately arose in the
hole, far superior to what they had before. I do
not think the well was more than twenty feet
deep.

The other circumstance occurred at a friend s
house at Homerton, near London. During the
digging for a new sewer at Homerton, the depth
of the sewer drew away the water from a well in
the garden, and then a pump in the kitchen failed.
The well that supplied the pump was in the mid-
dle of the kitchen : it was therefore opened, and
the men dug five feet into blue clay, where water
never resides. They next went to boring, and
bored for nine days, still through blue clay, and
got water at fifty-two feet. They then dug twenty
feet, when it rose about nine feet; but at this
stage of the proceedings the depth was too great
for the weight of air to let the water ascend.
They then dug ten feet across the kitchen to the
pump, and were obliged to put down a new pump ;
the water then flowed as it always had done,
though not clear at first ; but it improved, and be-
came clear and pure after a little while.

There are many localities where water will be
found below a stratum of dry clay, if people would
only have the patience and resolution to persevere
in digging and boring.

I attribute the failure of the water in the well
in the foregoing instance, entirely to the narrow-
ness of the street at Homerton, which necessarily
brought the sewer too near the houses, although it
was carried along the centre of the street ; and

208 GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS.

this affords "another striking argument in favour of
making streets wide.

ROADS AND FOOTPATHS.

I beg to record my earnest protest against re-
pairing streets in towns, and roads, and footpaths
in the rural districts with ashes from burnt coals,
which is a very common custom in many parts of
the kingdom, and especially in places near manu-
factories and foundries. On a windy day, people
get their clothes and linen soiled with black dust,
which is also very injurious to the eyes, being of
a very sharp nature ; but if ashes on the roads in
the country are so filthy and pernicious, how much
more so they are when used in repairing streets in
a town ; every breath of wind carries the fine black
dust into the houses, and an impalpable powder
insinuates itself into every article of furniture and
dress, not excepting the insides of chests of
drawers, boxes, and trunks ; covering the chairs,
tables, and stairs with a dust that soils your hands
with whatever you touch.

But if the dust of common coal-ashes produces
such exceedingly disagreeable consequences, how
much more so does the refuse and dross of an iron
foundry. In wet weather, every splash of the
ferruginous mud fixes iron-mould spots on every
article of female dress that hangs around the
ankles ; and a person walking in white stockings
is isure to have them covered with iron-mould.

In dry and windy weather, small particles of
iron being mixed with the dust, and assailing the
eyes, cause painful excoriations of those invaluable
and precious members, and almost blind one for

ROADS AND FOOTPATHS. 209

a little while. I have felt the eflfects in my eyes
for a day or two, after having been well blinded on
an iron-dust road ; and I once heard of a young
man who had some iron-dust blown into his eyes,
the pain of which was so excruciating that he
uttered incessant shrieks, and went stone-blind.

A penalty of fifty pounds ought to be levied on
every person who repairs streets, roads, or foot-
paths with coal-ashes, or ashes and dross from
manufactories and foundries. One or two severe
examples would banish such a reckless custom
out of the land.

A penalty of twenty shillings ought to be levied
on every good housewife who throws fire-ashes
out of her door into any street, road, or inhabited
district, as thousands of good housewives do every
day.

The surveyors of the highways are, by Acts of
Parliament, legally obliged to repair the foot-pave-
ments and footpaths that pass through their seve-
ral districts. It being, therefore, their duty to
keep the foot-pavements in repair, how is it that
they suffer gentlemen to ride upon them, — a very
common custom in muddy weather, to save their
horses or themselves from being splashed ? The
heavy trot of a horse breaks the flags with which
the foot-way is paved, and thus there are always
holes and puddles of water at every three or four
yards ; and well dressed people can neither go nor
come from a church on Sunday, without being
splashed up to the knees, on a foot-pavement that
was purposely constructed for their convenience
and protection. And when walking out in a dark
night, one is constantly in danger of dislocating

p

210 GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS.

one's ankles, by stepping into a hole where the
stone- flag is broken.

Riding on footpaths is so common a custom in
country places, and causes so much destruction to
the paths and injury to pedestrians, that some-
thing ought to be done to put a stop to it.

A fine of 40s. levied on every sporting dandy
found riding on a footpath (half the fine to go to
the informer and the other half to the poor-box),
would perhaps put an end to these selfish, or at
leas, tho ughtless, practices.

The usual method of forming roads in the coun-
try, proves in the end a very expensive one to
keep in repair ; viz. covering the ground with a
crust of macadamized stone, but without any
foundation underneath to support it. The conse-
quence is, the roads become rotten in very wet
weather or after a severe frost, and if not imme-
diately attended to, are soon cut up into deep ruts.

The only sound plan ever discovered for forming
good roads, is to dig out the earth to the depth of
three feet and cart it away, then fill up the exca-
vation with broken granite (each piece about the
size of a man's head), and having thus laid a
foundation as strong as a rock, cover it a foot
deep with macadamized stone. Such a road
would last for ages, with as little trouble as is
now bestowed on bad roads.

Sand-stone is a wretched material for roads, and
as granite rocks are within hail of all the railroads,
it is a pity granite is not used all over the kingdom.

PRIVATE STREETS.

In every town there are certain streets, courts.

PRIVATE STREETS. 211

and alleys, that are called private property, and in
which, the owners and inhabitants seem privileged
to do as they please, by keeping them in a filthy
condition, their pavement out of repair, hanging
ropes across them ; and sometimes their selfish
independence carries them so far as even to erect
gates at the end of a private street for the purpose
of excluding the public and preventing the passage
of wheeled vehicles through them. No town can
be well regulated or said to be under good govern-
ment where such customs exist. Streets through
which there is no public thoroughfare, are an
aggravating nuisance in more ways than one, and
indeed there had better be no such streets than
that people should be prevented from passing
through them. Are private individuals to be
allowed to build with impunity private streets and
private property in such a way as that they shall
become public nuisances ? Are they to be under
the authority of no one who can see that private
gain does not run counter to the public good?
Private streets are very often very narrow streets,
and so long as the minimum width of streets is
not fixed by law, and private streets be allowed to
be shut up with gates to block out the public, so
long will it be utterly impossible to improve the
building of towns in any permanent degree ; for
if a whole town were pulled down and rebuilt on
the best possible plan this year, yet it might be
spoilt by erecting a number of inconvenient under'
width streets the next.

Private streets, courts, and alleys, ought to be
junder the surveillance of the regularly appointed
officers and commissioners, in every town, the

p2

212 GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS.

same as the public streets; and street-cainmiitees
should be formed to superintend the welfare of all
such streets, and persons creating any nuisance
and neglecting their warning should be fined.

COURTS AND ALLEYS.

Under the previous head^ I have recommended
that private streets and all existing courts and
alleys, should be equally under the supervision of
the town's authorities and Commissioners of Im-
provements (or Street Committees appointed by
the former) as public streets. But the sooner a
town can get rid of its courts and alleys the
better ; and although a law cannot be made to
abolish them immediately without some incon-
venience to the inhabitants of these retired places,
and loss perhaps to the owners of such property,
yet a law can be made and ought to be made, to
prevent the building for the future of any more
courts and alleys in any town or village or hamlet
in the British dominions.

One of the causes of the difficulty of improving
the plan of a town, and one of the greatest difficult
ties of keeping up order, health, cleanliness, &c.
in a town, may fairly be ascribed to the existence
of those pretty little independent kingdoms in a
town, called ** Courts and Alleys."

If you hear a quarrel between two women, it is
sure to be up some court or alley. If you see a
fight between two men, it is sure to be up some
court or alley. If there is a brothel in the vicinity
of any street, it is sure to be up some court or
alley in the street. If there is a gambling hell,
it is sure to be in some court or alley. If you hear

CELLAR-GRATINOS ON FOOT-PAVEMENTS.' 21S

the fiddle squeaking at noon day, be sure it is a
dance of naked women in some den of infamy up a
court or an alley. If you hear of a gang of coiners
and forgers, they are generally found up some
court or alley. If you hear of a poor man's lamb
(his daughter) being the victim of a seducer, you
will hear it happened in some bad house up a
court or an alley. If you hear of a barbarous
murder committed upon some unsuspecting youth,
it will turn out that he was decoyed to a public
house up some court or alley to see some cheap
silk handkerchiefs. (This was once a very common
crime.) In fact, courts and alleys being retired
from public observation are almost always nests of
poisonous filth, hiding-places for thieves, and the
secluded scenes of vice, depravity, and desperate
misery.

Besides ; the inhabitants of courts and alleys
can never see what is passing along the adjoining
street, and this is one reason why so many groups
of poor men and women are always standing at the
ends of the courts and alleys in a town, staring at
the passengers as if they had never seen a man
before in their lives.

I strongly recommend, for the good of all classes,
that courts and alleys be abolished; and let
men live in wide streets, and act openly and
honestly in the sight of all.

The authorities of every town should buy up the
properties in the courts and alleys, and pull them
down.

CELLAR-ORATINOS ON FOOT-PAVEMENTS.

There is scarcely a city or a town in the king-

214 GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS.

dom, including the metropolis, where that ugly
custom of making cellar-windows across the foot^
pavement does not prevail, and a more dangerous
one can scarcely be imagined, for in many streets
it is positively hazardous for people to proceed
along them. In the streets of many towns the
foot-pavements are intersected by a series of holes
which stretch out from one to three feet, and are
often only covered with a wooden trap-door so
springy and slight, that it is frightful to walk
over them ; but the worst part of this nuisance in
country towns, is the practice of leaving these
apertures unguarded by a grate, and being win-
dows to coal cellars and wine vaults, are some-
times very deep, and one would think they were
invented for no other purpose than to act as man-
traps to break the legs and necks of honest
unsuspecting strangers. Sometimes an unfortu-
nate ox falls into one of these deep cellars, but
oftener do we hear of human beings falling the
victims of these horrible pits.

So dangerous a nuisance on the foot-pavements
should be entirely abolished, and it might be done
very easily, as there is not the least necessity for
making the entrance to cellars and coal-holes, in
the flagging of the footway. Let a small arched
recess be made in the front wall of every house
that has a cellar, and let the stairs, if stairs be
required, be made within the cellar, and not half
out and half in, as is the custom at present.

Recesses can be made of every variety of di-
mensions. If for the admission of pipes of wine,
they should be made large accordingly, and have
folding-doors. If merely required for men to go

STEPS AND SCRAPERS. 21t&

I
/

down, they need not be more than four feet high,
and three feet wide ; and if only a hole is required
for the purpose of shooting coals down, it need not
be larger than a foot square.

A recess in the front wall would answer every
purpose; and holes in the pavement should be
forbidden for the future, and entirely abolished
everywhere.

STEPS AND SCRAPERS.

Next to the nuisance and dangerous custom of
making the entrance to cellars two or three feet
across the footway in towns, and the holes to coal-
cellars in a similar situation, I have to notice a
custom that is almost, if not quite as dangerous, —
namely, the projection of door-steps on the foot-
path, and the iron scrapers by the side thereof. I
am sure that 1 have read of hundreds of accidents
to different people falling over the steps of a door
when passing along a narrow foot-pavement in
dark nights, and unlucky falls in frosty weather,
when many a head has been cut by coming in
contact with a projecting scraper.

It is almost impossible to walk some of the
narrow streets of London at night, without being
in momentary danger of tripping against some
door-step in an unguarded moment, when the
mind is absorbed with some engrossing subject ;
and I believe that thousands of people get ugly
£alls across projecting steps. The custom of
planting steps and scrapers a single inch beyond
the line of the wall of the houses is so improper,
so dangerous and unscientific, that it ahould he

216 GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS.

totally forbidden and abolished throughout the
kingdom.

The ground-floors of all houses, not detached
mansions, should not be more than six inches
above the level of the ground outside, and then
there would be no necessity for any steps ; or
supposing the ground-floor were twelve inches
higher than the level of the footway, a couple of
shallow steps made in the thickness of the wall
within the doorway, would be more safe to the
public, and equally convenient to the inmates of
the houses. At any rate, steps should be made
within the line of the walls, be the floors ever so
much raised ; and not outside. On this point,
private convenience should give way to public
convenience and security.

And as to the iron scrapers which now univer-
sally stand out from the wall so improperly in
nearly all the streets of towns, if a very small
recess were made in the wall of each house by the
side of every door, the scraper might be fixed
within it so as not to project at all, and thus a few
of the most dangerous items on the foot-pavements
of towns and villages might be got rid of; and the
best way would be to compel the riddance by a
legislative enactment, which might embrace many
other useful regulations.

NAMING STREETS AND NUMBERING HOUSES.

One of the most tantalizing customs to a stranger
that prevails in most towns, is that of naming
more than one street or locality in the same town
by the same name; indeed, the practice in London

NAMING STREETS AND NUMBERING HOUSES. 217

is carried to such an absurd length, that three and
four streets in different parts of the metropolis are
called by the same name. This, I say, is suffi-
ciently tantalizing ; but there is another custom,
or negligence, equally, if not more provoking, and
that is, the total omission of the name of a street
on the corner-houses of the street, so that a stran-
ger is obliged to ask others the name of the street
he is in, and frequently the question is asked of
several who are as ignorant of it as himself, and
thus an hour is wasted in hunting for a street,
which perhaps he has been walking through two
or three times during the last half-hour. The best
way is to enquire at a shop ; but every body does
not like to enter a shop for an apparently trifling
question, especially when it is so frequently treated
with a repulsive answer, inattention, or a lying " I
don't know," which has happened to myself many
a time.

Another tantalizing omission in numerous streets,
lanes, courts, and alleys, is the not numbering the
houses, although perhaps there is not a more use-
ful thing to the public than having the number
fixed on the door-posts, or over the upper lintel of
the door of each house.

Some general regulation for all towns, villages,
and rows of houses, should be made the law of the
land, to compel the fixing up of the names of all
localities ; to prevent more than one street or
locality in the same town from bearing the same
name ; and to compel a general and uniform sys-
tem of numbering houses ; and the neglect of this
law in cities, towns, villages, hamlets, rows of
houses, courts, alleys, and all other localities, to

218 GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS.

be punishable by fine and penalty on the landlord
or owner of the property.

The best plan of numbering houses, is that of
placing the odd numbers on the left side of the
street, and the even numbers on the right, reckon-
ing from the parish church as a centre. The
advantages of this plan are, that any person in
search of a house, of which he knows the number,
can see at once on which side of the street it will
be found, and he might thus be saved a useless
walk up a long crowded street. It has been tried
in some large towns on the Continent, and found
to answer very well. But I think an improvement
on this plan would be to begin the counting of the
odd and even numbers from opposite ends of the
street. Suppose we choose a long street, (say
Holbom in London, for example,) and there are
four hundred houses in the street, I would begin
at one end with 2, 4, 6, 8, and so on up to No. 400,
and begin the opposite end of the street with 1, 3,
5, 7, and so on up to No. 399. This would save
people from the trouble of reckoning backwards,
and would direct them sooner to the number
wanted, no matter which end of the street they
entered, which is a facility in a very long street.

POST-OFFICES.

Every town in the kingdom, and many villages
also, have one General Post-office. Now, I can
prove by dear-bought experience, that one General
Post-office is not enough, and affi)rds no security
to letters nor guarantee for their safe sending and
safe delivery. I have lost many letters that I had
written to people in distant parts of England, and

POST-OFFICES, 219

put into the post at the village where I resided.
After waiting a considerable time for answers, I
wrote again to the same people, and still no
answers came. I then waited several months
before I wrote again ; and when I did write, I at
last got an answer from one, saying he never,
received my former letters. I had my suspicions
that all was not going on right at the village post,
and other people entertained the same suspicions ;
but on account of the respectability of the family
who kept the Post-office, no one liked to interfere
or make enquiry, or speak openly on the subject,
for fear of injuring the family, who kept the first
inn in the place.

Now, I attribute the purloining of letters entirely
to the circumstance of there being no check upon
the Post-office people ; for if you sent a letter
containing money to a distant correspondent,
and he never received it, you naturally write again,
but here is the *' tug of war," — you have to put
your letter into the same Post-office; it falls
into the hands of the same person who stole your
first letter, and he seeing who your second letter
is addressed to, has no other means of preventing
detection but that of destroying it, and perhaps a
third, if you are foolish enough to write again. I
have many a time walked five miles to put a letter
into a distant Post-office, in order to ensure its
delivery.

There is only one remedy for the safety of
letters, and that is, to appoint two General Post
offices in every town and in every village in the
kingdom, each of which shall have a separate
post bag, locked with a key, a separate postman,

220 GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS.

and a separate mail-gig, if a gig be requisite.
The two General Post-oflBces to act totally inde-
pendent of each other, and, in fact, the same
as if they were set up in direct opposition to each
other: but the hours of receipt, delivery, and
sending off the mail to be exactly the same for
both. And to prevent any collusion between the
two General Post-oflSces, they should be kept by
two distinct families, not in any way related or
connected with each other; and in different houses*
I would then defy a letter to miscarry, because
the one would be a check upon the other. For
instance, if you sent a letter containing bank notes
or bills, by one of the General Offices, and there
were doubts of the rectitude of its proceedings,
you would write the same day by the other
General Office, and if the money letter did not
arrive at the same time with the other, (and no
accident had caused the delay,) you might in-
stantly fix the fault on the right people. But the
very fear of such certainty of detection, and so
instantaneous, would for ever prevent any man
from stealing letters.

In London there are scores of Post-offices, and
a man can advise a correspondent in another
part of the metropolis of his having remitted him
by such and such a Post-office; but in the
country there will never be any safety for letters,
nor any means of speedy detection, (if detection
at all,) until a check be established by appointing
two General Post-offices in every town, and in
every village.

There is another custom in country places^
which is certainly, to say the least, a very critical

POST-OFFICES. 221

one for the safety of money letters, namely — ^the
fact of Post-offices being kept by landlords of
inns and public-houses, shops, and other places of
resort ; and it is rendered ten times more dan-
gerous by the kindness or familiarity of the people
of the house permitting all sorts of people (their
neighbours, reputed respectable,) to go and sit
within the very bar where the letter bags are
made up, and also received, emptied, and the
letters sorted before their faces, (which I have
witnessed a thousand times,) and if the good man,
or his wife, or son, or daughter, be the only person
sorting the letters in the presence of a neighbour,
and happens to be called away to serve liquor to
a customer in the tap-room or parlour, it is the
easiest thing in the world for the person left
in the bar to steal a letter, and not be suspected,
nor ever be found out. And I have known and seen
persons frequently go and sit in the bar near the
table, and watch the sorting of the letters, who did
not bear an over scrupulous character in affairs of
integrity. As I do not wish to injure anybody
unmeritedly, I shall not state any further parti-
culars.

I think that a law should be made forbidding
the Post-ofl5ces of villages and other places, from
being kept at inns, public-houses, and other houses
of public resort ; also that no person be permitted
to be in the same room with the postmaster or
mistress while sorting letters, except their proper
assistants ; any infringement of this regulation, to
be punished by a fine of five pounds, both on the
postmaster who permits it, and the person intrude
ing; half the fine to go to the informer, and

222 GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS.

the other half to the nearest infirmary or public
hospital.

COUNTRY-HOUSES.

Outside, and beyond towns and villages, country
houses should never be built in rows, but only
single, or by twos, say by couples, side by side,
with an open space between each couple, which
would allow of ample room for garden ground
to each house. People who seek retirement in
the country from the toils of business and worry
of society, do not like to be overlooked, and their
privacy encroached upon from other people's upper
windows, which is a nuisance that cannot be
avoided, where houses are built in a continuous row.

PUBLIC SWIMMING-BATHS.

Every town and populous village in England
ought to have a public swimming-bath, situated a
short distance in the retired outskirts of the place,
for the resort of the labouring classes who cannot
afford to pay for private baths, and for others who
are recommended the exercise of swimming. The
bill introduced into Parliament a few years ago,
" authorizing towns to form public parks and
bathing tanks," did not go far enough ; it ought to
have made these places of health and recreation
compulsory. Heavy complaints are constantly
made every summer at Liverpool and other towns,
of the indecent exposure of swarms of poor men and
lads who line the rivers and canals for a consider-
able distance, enjoying their very necessary and
healthy ablutions during the hot weather.

Public bathing-tanks should not be situated at

PUBLIC SWIMMING-BATHS. 223

a great distance from any side of a town, and
large populous towns should have several ; they
should all be of a uniform shape and dimensions ;
audit strikes me that the canal form^ or oblong piece
of water is the most convenient, and the safest, as
it enables a person to reach the middle in a
few seconds, to succour any person seized with the
cramp or drowning, easier than could be done in a
large square pond; nevertheless, the breadth should
not be less than one hundred feet. A length of
300 or 400 yards would be necessary to afford the
different groups of bathers latitude to spread
themselves out. The whole bottom of a tank
should be paved with white bricks, or white stone,
not glazed, but as rough as possible, and made
expressly for the purpose ; as when the bottom is
smooth and slippery, it is difficult to stand on
one's feet, and a youth not accustomed to the
water might slip down and be suffocated in the
water before he could recover himself again.
There should be three different depths, or if the
tank be 300 yards long, then 100 yards might be
three feet deep for boys ; 100 yards four feet deep
for lads ; and 100 yards five feet deep for men ;
besides a diving place ten or twelve feet deep,
into which a wooden jetty should be run out into
the water, and the place railed off. A number of
alcoves about ten feet square, roofed and benched,
should be erected at intervals round the tank
close to the margin, for the bathers to undress in ;
and the whole place should be surrounded by an
embankment of earth, sloped off on both sides
and turfed, on the top of which there should be a
promenade and seats for such of the public as like

224 GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS.

to see swi milling races, and other aquatic feats.
There should be a lodge for the tank-warden, or
porter, who should be charged with the care of the
water, the alcoves, seats, &c. ; and he should
keep printed regulations for the good behaviour
of all who resorted thereto. No money or fees
should be permitted or required. Various appa-
ratus should also always be in readiness in case of
an accident from drowning, which, however, with
all the foregoing precautions, is a contingency that
would scarcely ever happen, especially if the
young people were strictly kept to those parts of
the water where the depth suited their own height.

The use of the embankment of earth is mainly
suggested to make the tank secluded and retired
from the eyes of females on the outside. There
are few towns that could not afford to have one or
more such tanks ; and as the population of the
kingdom increases, the health and morals of the
community will soon render such provision of
water an absolute and imperative necessity. The
bathers should be compelled to wear a girdle called
a lungootify as in India, that is, a small linen apron
three or four inches broad, passing between the
legs, and fastened tight both behind and before to
a string round the waist, for the sake of propriety.

Almost every town, village, and pagoda in India,
can boast of the possession of one or more fine
tanks of good water, in which the inhabitants are
accustomed to enjoy their daily luxurious bathe,
wash their garments, make their religious ab-
lutions, and prayers according to their super-
stitious religion. These tanks vary in size, from
forty to two hundred yards square, and I do not

WARMING AND VENTILATING HOUSES. 225

recollect ever seeing any of a less size than forty.
They are regular excavations, with a level bottom,
generally about twelve feet deep : the earth is
thrown up all round at some distance from the
edge of the tank, as otherwise it might fall in and
fill up, and also gently sloped off to the surrounding
surface of the plain : the interior sides slope gently
down to the bottom, and are finished with hand-
some hewn-stone steps, the whole length of the
four sides, from the top of the edge to the bottom
of the tank. The slight eminence formed by the
earth round the tank^ is of infinite use to travellers,
it being generally dry in the wet season. A
choultry or caravanserai, and a circular clump of
tall shady trees commonly stand close to each
tank ; a pleasant halting-place for travellers.

WARMING AND VENTILATING HOUSES.*

Four things are required by human beings of
sound constitution, to enable them to live and en-
joy good health to the full period of human ex-
istence ; namely, fit air, warmth^ wholesome and
sufiicient food, and exercise of body and mind.

A human being destroys or deteriorates a gallon
of air per minute, and unless ventilation, in pro-
portion to the number of persons present in a
room or building, be provided for, the bad air will
in due time seriously affect the health of those
living in it.

People who spend much of their time in close
apartments, of which the ventilation is either left
to chance, or even studiously prevented, in order
to preserve the warm air therein, are not aware of

* Partly abridged from Dr. Amott's Report.

Q

226 GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS.

the fatal influence on their health which the breath-
ing a polluted and noxious air has. In many
crowded schools, hospitals, &c., ventilation has
been sought by openings made through the wall^
near the ceiling, as directly into the open air as
when panes of glass are broken, with sliding shut-
ters to close them when desired. Now this means
is far from ensuring the object. In winter, when
the fires are burning, these openings, instead of
being channels of escape for impure air, become
entrances for cold air, which pours down upon
those sitting near them ; and reaching the floor,
chills the feet of the others as it sweeps along to
supply the draught of the chimneys. Persons
sitting under or near these openings, being likely
to catch severe colds or inflammations, generally
close them (when they can), to obtain security.
It is in winter chiefly, that the mischiefs now
spoken of from imperfect ventilation are likely to
arise; for, in warmer weather windows may be
freely opened, although with some hazard to those
sitting near them; and it is very dangerous to
have top sashes down, as the downward draught
of air frequently gives people rheumatism in the
head.

In India, an horizontal fan, called a punkah,
hangingfrom the ceiling, is commonly used in large
rooms to swing to and fro, which fans and cools
the air ; but I used to think the very cold air cre-
ated over our heads by a punkah, was a very un-
pleasant thing. The punkah vibrates the air only,;
but would not purify a bad air in a closed apart-
ment in a cold climate. The ventilation of our
rooms in dwelling-houses by the draught of the

WARMING AND VENTILATING HOUSES. 22?

chimney is very faulty, for it takes away rather
the pure air which is under the level of the chim-
ney-piece, than the impure breath which has as-
cended from our lungs to the ceiling, and which
must again come down before it goes out ; but no
immediate inconvenience is felt from this except
on occasions of crowded parties. For the venti-
lation of factories, a wheel, on the principle of the
fanner, used in barns, is placed at an opening
communicating with the space to be ventilated,
and being turned with any desired rapidity, ex-
tracts air to the required extent. A smaller wheel
of the same kind for private rooms might be
worked by a weight, attached to an endless chain,
passing through several pullies, or it might be
worked in the same manner as a kitchen roasting-
jack. Other contrivances may yet be invented by
our clever mechanics.

In regard to warmth : in England, in the winter
season, persons sitting without exercise, and in
their usual clothing, require a temperature of from
sixty-five to seventy degrees, to be comfortably
warm; and their feeling of comfort is a scale
whereby to judge or measure their security from
the diseases produced by cold. Now, by an open
fire, it is almost impossible to give such tempera-
ture to the whole of a large room, and this is illus-
trated by the fact of persons generally placing
themselves in a circle round the fire, beyond which
circle they would be too cold, but within which
they would be too hot ; and when in a large room
with an open fire, there is a numerous company
tolerably warm, they are generally maintaining
the temperature in a great part by their own warm

q2

228 GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS.

breath, which at the same time is destroying the
clear air of the room. Complaints of cold in the
feet, and diseases, often begin and continue from
their being chilled while under the influence of a
stratum of cold air, commonly called draughts,
from the bottom of the door moving along the floor
towards the open fire. The heat afforded by a
close iron-stove, such as is used in Germany, or by
an iron fire-cupboard built into the wall, and fed
with fuel from the back in another room or pas-
sage, as is the custom at St. Petersburg, in
Russia, or a large iron urn standing in the middle
of a room, as is frequently the case in Belgium, or
a poele at one side of a room, as at Paris, is more
uniform than that of an open fire, and is not at-
tended by the draughts, &c., accompanying the
latter. But Dr. Arnott says they are objectionable
from the offensive and pernicious state of the air,
produced by contact with the over-heated iron. I
would not dispute Dr. Arnott's extensive research
and superior knowledge on this subject ; but I
may just say that during my year's residence near
Berg, in France, I used to sit all day in a room
when the urn (which was four feet high,) was red-
hot, nearly every day ; and I cannot remember
any inconvenience from it, either to myself or my
twenty-nine fellow-pupils. In England, where
large rooms have been well warmed, the means
have been pipes of hot water or steam, conducted
through the apartment to warm the whole equally,
while the fresh air for ventilation is heated : as it
enters, by coming in contact with these pipes.
To this latter mode of warming buildings, however
innoxious and simple it may appear, I enter my

WARMING AND VENTILATING HOUSES. 229

humble protest : I have been informed by a re-
spectable person, that some large building, after
being warmed a short time by steam, was dis-
covered to be decaying in every part, from damp,
especially the floors and joists, which had never
been known to be damp before ; and he was in
painful anxiety lest his parish church should be
warmed with steam, which it was proposed to do
at the time by the church authorities. I am not
quite so certain that steam generated from some
particular water, is so innocent and innoxious as
some persons suppose ; but even, if all steam be
perfectly innocent and wholesome, yet it is a most
dangerous agent to employ in warming buildings,
when it insidiously saps the timber and wood-
work, rotting the floors, and rendering every part
not visible to the eye, damp, unsafe, and danger-
ous to human life. A damp building, although
warm, cannot be fit for the constant residence or
meeting-place of human beings : and, suppose for
a moment, that the gallery in a church, or the floor
of a large factory, were to give way with two hun-
dred people in it, besides heavy benches or ma-
chinery, what destruction of life and limb would
be the consequence !

The best way of warming a large apartment is
by a square close iron stove or cupboard, placed
in the middle of the room, which consumes its own
smoke ; and any pernicious air it might generate
would ascend to the ceiling, and might be let off
by an opening-pane of glass in one or more of the
top sashes of the windows ; but these opening-
panes should only be opened during those inter*-
vals when the apartment is vacated for a short

230 GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS.

time, and there are always such short intervals in
most buildings and factories, when the people are
absent, either for meals or some short relaxation
from labour,

It is the custom to have double windows during
winter at St. Petersburg, that is, two sets of sashes
one within the other, with a space of six or more
inches between ; and all the crevices of the inner
windows are pasted over with paper, so as to
exclude every particle of outward air from pene-
trating into the apartment : this is very well for
that intensely cold climate, but whether the custom
be worth adopting in England, time and opinion
will shew. I think it would be useful for hospitals
and infirmaries during a severe winter ; and where
there are back and front windows in the same
room in a dwelling-house, those windows the most
exposed to the severest winds might have double
sashes, and it would render the house as warm as
if the windows were built up with a wall.

ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF CHIMNEYS.*

" Sir, — My subject, though a dingy one, has for
its object the removal of a nuisance, said to be the
greatest but one, (the writer will not name it, but
I suppose he alludes to a scolding wife,) that can
befal a man. I hope, therefore, to be pardoned
for asking for a corner of your journal to make
known a method by which the caps, curtains, and
complexions of our fair ladies may escape the
injury which the ill construction of chimneys in
common modern-built houses, have inflicted upon
them, by covering them with smoke once or twice

* Leeds Intelligencer.

ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF CHIMNEYS. 231

a-day, and sometimes, if the wind happens to blow
from tJie wrong quarter, all day long.

** The construction of chimneys, now-a-days, is
so improper, and many architects and builders
are so ignorant of the right form of them, that my
astonishment is that the houses are at all to be
endured.

*'The model of the inside of a correctly-built
chimney is the inside of a gun barrel with the
breach cut off.

" I know it may be inconvenient and expensive
to build chimneys round, I will therefore allow
them to be square. As the inside cannot be quite
smooth, let it be as smooth the whole way up as
the plastered walls of a room : it cannot in all
cases be straight. I will therefore, if required, for
the convenience of an upper room fire-place,
allow of a gentle curve : but I will not permit the
dimensions or the area of the inside of the chimney
to be at all varied from the bottom to the top,
unless it gradually gets larger as it rises. A
large majority of the builders with whom I con-
verse say, ** the more crooked the chimney, and
the narrower at the top, the better the draft."
Draft, forsooth I Let them make a fire on a calm
day in an open field, and they will see the smoke
ascend perpendicularly without any draft. This
is a natural and a necessary consequence. Smoke,
being much lighter than the atmospheric air, re-
quires no draft to make it rise. Again, make a
fire under the branches of a tree, the smoke will
rise to the branches, against which it strikes and
rebounds, and, being cooled, will fall to the ground
or float horizontally, as it does from a modem-

232 GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS.

built chimney. I had lately occasion to survey
a chimney in a new-built house, which I will
describe as nearly as I can. — Its open space from
the lower fire-place, nine feet high, perpendicular,
was three feet four inches by one foot three inches,
here a stone slab was placed nearly horizontally
immediately over the lower stove, covering the
whole opening, except an aperture on one side, of
one foot two inches by one foot three inches.
The chimney was built with stone, left rough and
without plastering ; above this aperture, I under-
stood, it took a crooked course until it came to
the apex of the roof, where again it assumed a
perpendicular direction, but at this angle or bend
the space was so small and rough that a very
small boy could scarcely penetrate it. Along this
tortuous course the smoke was expected to ascend
— but no ! nothing short of a current of air suffi-
cient to turn the sails of a windmill could make
it: I caused the throat of the chimney to be
reduced to the size of the smallest aperture above,
which did some good.

** It must be admitted that my plan will increase
the expense of house-building a little, yet no lady
or gentleman will object to pay a trifle more rent
to be free from this abominable nuisance.

" Permit me, sir, to say, so long as the incon-
venience of smoky chimneys is attributed to some
eddy from a neighbouring house, or hill, or tree,
or some mysterious cause, it will exist ; but when
the blame is put upon the architect, to whom it
properly and truly belongs, it will cease entirely.

** The proper construction of the fire-place must
of course be attended to. I have lately seen the

ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF CHIMNEYS. 233

ornamental work of the top front of the register
stove open ; nothing can be more unscientific than
this ; it would seem as if a premium were offered
for bringing the smoke into the room ; ironmongers,
perhaps, know no better, but woe be to the archi-
tect who can permit such stoves to be used !

** Let the Jire-plojce he immediately beneath the
chimney y the opening in front as narrow as is con-
venient; if wider than the chimney, it must be
sloped off to that width, at least, a little above the
top front of the stove, which should be about one
and a half times the depth of the grate above the
upper bar. I am sure that if these rules be
attended to, not one room in a thousand will be
troubled with smoke." " J. B."

N.B. — Great care should always be taken in
building the chimneys of a house, to pour in plenty
of mortar between the brickwork of every layer of
bricks, for otherwise, even the smallest crack not
well filled with mortar, admits the wind, and if it
should be but half way up the chimney, it would
infallibly intercept and drive the smoke down-
wards into the rooms.

I believe more smoky rooms happen from the
neglect of applying sufficient mortar into every
layer of bricks than architects and builders are
aware of. If they do not attend in person and
watch narrowly the progress of building a chim-
ney, or if they turn their backs but for a moment,
the workmen will hurry over the work and fre-
quently leave many intervals in a wall without
any mortar. I have noticed the fact many a
time.

234 GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS.

FACTORY CHIMNEYS.

A discovery has been recently (1842) made in
chimney-building which is likely to put a stop ta
the building of lofty pillars for the purpose of
carrying away engine-smoke from manufactories.
The reason assigned for building lofty chimneys
is that the increased height gives an amazingly
increased draft; (as well as that it carries the
smoke high out of the way of our chamber win-
dows.) But it has been found that a chimney of
the ordinary height, or at most sixty or seventy
feet, which is so constructed as to have the inside
of the flue narrowest at the bottom, and gradually
widening as it ascends, has the effect of increasing
the draught and burning the smoke in a much
greater degree than is produced by a tall flue on
the old principle. A chimney built on the new
principle has the appearance outwardly, of a
tower, as it stands upon a large base, and carries
its width on the outside to the very top. The cost
is not one-third of that of one of the tallest chim-
neys, and the danger from falling is comparatively
small. Messrs. Clark of Glasgow, have proved
the superiority of the new system, having built a
chimney on that principle, about seventy feet high.
Notwithstanding the invention of smoke -
burners, yet it will always be necessary to build
lofty chimneys to the mills and factories, as some
little smoke will escape at times, which it would
be well to guard against.

CONSUMPTION OF SMOKE.

Heavy complaints are made in all the manu-

CONSUMPTION OF SMOKE. 235

facturing towns and villages in the kingdom of
the dense clouds of smoke and showers of soot
emitted from steam-engine chimneys, to the
injury of adjoining property, and to the incon-
venience and discomfort of the neighbouring
families, if not to the prejudice of their health.
This is an evil which has much increased of late
years, and which, if not removed, will ultimately
have the effect of driving many of the inhabitants
who live in the most valuable houses in the towns,
and are not obliged to remain there, into the
country, to find air that can be freely breathed.

There are now no less than ten different Patent
Smoke-consumers invented, which not only burn
the smoke without injury to the boilers or expense
to individuals, but actually effect a material saving
of fuel : it is, therefore, to be hoped that the
manufacturers will feel it to be their duty, as it is
their interest, to burn their own smoke, now that
they have the power. Whoever neglects to do
this, ought to be prosecuted as a public pest,
intent only upon his own selfish views, and regard-
less of the health and comfort of his neighbours.

Several societies are formed, both in London
and in some of the country-towns, who are deter-
mined to prosecute all parties who neglect to con-
sume their own smoke, including that of steam-
vessels ; and to compel offenders, wherever they
may be found, by indictment, information, fine, or
imprisonment, to abate the nuisance.

The following is a list of the patentees or in-
ventors: — Mr. Samuel Hall, 18, King's Arms-
yard, Moorgate-street, London ; Mr. Bell, 11,
Queen-street, Edinburgh ; Mr. Richard Rodda,

236 GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS.

35, London-wall, London, or St. Austell, Cornwall;
Mr. Thomas Hall, Basin ghall-street, Leeds ; Mr.
C. W. Williams, Liverpool ; Mr. Edward Godson^
72, Aldersgate-street, London ; Mr. Baron Von
Rathin, George-street, Hull ; Mr. Thos. Hedley,
Shield Field, Newcastle-on-Tyne ; Mr. Prichard,
Burley-Mills, near Leeds ; and Mr. Edward Bil-
lingsley, Bradford, Yorkshire. A Mr. Juckes has
also recently taken out a patent for a smoke«
consuming furnace.

LONDON SMOKE.

It is impossible to witness the fine buildings of
this great metropolis without deploring the spolia-
tion committed on their appearance by the eternal
and apparently incurable evil of smoke. Science
has put forth her arm to arrest the spread of
smoke from manufacturing fires, — shall it be said
that Science shall be conquered by the smoke of
domestic fires ? — Heaven forbid ! I should think
some plan might be invented for general adoption
in every private house, — some kind of machinery
that might be fitted to every stove-grate or other
vehicle containing fire, which would operate some
process that would either alter the nature of the
coals, or consume the smoke, and yet permit of
tbe cheering sight of a prattling fire, composed of
those two lively companions, — flame and red-hot
coals.

When it is considered how much handsomer
than London Paris is, where they burn nothing
but wood, and consequently the chimneys, which
are universally very small, only emit a little white
smoke, scarcely perceptible, and how much more

THE BUILDINGS REGULATION BILL. 23?

wholesome, cleanly, and beautiful, London would
be, if the smoke could be conquered, — I think it
is not asking too much, to say that Government
should offer a reward of 5000/. for the discovery of
any practicable scheme, not too expensive, for the
prevention or consumption of the smoke of private
houses.

The man that accomplishes this, would deserve
to have his statue placed in the Walhalla.

If the smoke of London could be abated or
prevented, the streets would look well if they were
all plastered or stuccoed and yellow- washed ; not
a bright yellow, but a kind of sun-colour, as it is
termed in painting. The metropolis would then
look as cheerful and lively as Paris. The new
streets that are plastered, are done with a leaden
or stone colour, which has no appearance of cheer-
fulness in it.

CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS.

(^Extract from a Newspaper,)
" The Buildings Regulation Bill was the subject of a highly*
respectable meeting, held at the Town Hall (Birmingham), on
Tuesday last. The attention of the public is earnestly called to
the provisions of this Bill. No class will be free from the effects
of the measure: in most cases they will be very serious; in all very
vexatious. The Bill, doubtless, was designed by very benevolent
individuals; but it is based on great ignorance of the actual state of
large towns. We need only refer to one of the many injurious
effects, and which appears to us to be the most serious. It contains
many provisions as to the mode of building, the strength of walls,
and the spaces between different buildings, which will have the
effect of preventing the erection of small houses, such as now con-
stitute our numerous courts. This will be a most lamentable con-
sequence, as, to the circumstances of the working classes residing
in separate dwellings, is to be attributed the superior condition of
OUT town in a sanatory point of view."

238 GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS.

Behold a newspaper, sounding the trumpet '' to
arms," and immediately all the newspapers in the
kingdom set themselves in battle-array against an
excellent measure, that they know nothing about
and misrepresent, and by their mischievous para-
graphs set all the world in opposition to the most
useful Bill that was ever concocted for the benefit
of the nation.

" No class will be free from the effects of the
measure !" What a pity! — ** In most cases they
will be very serious !" Why was it not made to
please everybody? No good law ought to be
serious. — " In all very vexatious !" It is a sad job
that any laws should vex people. Why not let
them continue to build pigstyes as usual, if they
prefer living in such holes? — "The Bill was based
on great ignorance of the state of large towns I'*
I rather think the great ignorance is with the
writer of the paragraph ; for it is a great deal
more probable that the individuals who designed
the Bill, and who have been studying the subject
for years, (I have myself heard of this Bill every
year for several years,) and visiting and enquiring,
and making their reports of the state of the great
towns, should know the posture of affairs, the
faults and the best modes of providing against
them in future, a little better than a small land-
lord, which I take the writer to be, engrossed in
his own little circle of interests. His most serious
objection against the Bill is, that it will prevent
the erection of small houses in the numerous
courts and alleys, which, he says, will be a most
lamentable consequence. After what I have writ-
ten against courts and alleys, it is scarcely worth

THE BUILDINGS REGULATION BILL. 239

while to say, that I regard this portion of the Bill
as the very best part of it. But then he says, " it
is to the circumstance of the working classes
residing in separate dwellings^ that their superior
health and cleanliness is to be attributed.** Sepa-
rate dwellings ! — ^Why, what stupidity ! Cannot
poor people live in separate houses in wide streets
as well as in courts and alleys ?

As to the assertion that the cleanliness and
healthiness of a town is to be attributed to the
fact of the poorer classes living in separate houses,
— it may partly be so in Birmingham, but it is a
consequence that does not always follow ; witness
the filthy separate houses of some other manufac-
turing towns, Leeds, for instance : here may be
seen a thousand families living in separate houses,
and the most part of them up to their ears in filth.
Courts and alleys are more liable to disease from
impurity of air, and the crowding of poor people
together, than open wide streets.* Birmingham
is certainly a clean town, considering what manu-
factures are carried on there ; but I will tell the
reader what the superior sanatory state of that
town is owing to : it is not to the labouring people
living in separate houses, but it is owing to the

* It was mentioned at a meeting of the Town Council of Leeds,
that one of the little courts (the Boot and Shoe Yard) was the
source of very much fever, there being removed from it in 1840 no
fewer than forty-three cases to the House of Recovery. The cases
of fever from the same court were not so many last year, in conse-
quence of some improvement in the drainage ; but, owing to the
only entrance to the yard being in Kirkgate-street, there was no
calculating what cases of fever might result from that yard, by
persons passing by, and coming in contact with the contagion, or
€ven infection y arising from the disease.

240 GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS.

circumstance of Birmingham being seated on a
steep hill, and every heavy shower of rain washes
it as clean as if Hercules himself had been em-
ployed on the mighty task. (Colchester, also
seated upon a hill, is a remarkably clean town, for
the same reason.) And as to the interior of the
poorer people's separate houses, it must be borne
in mind that they have been looked after by the
authorities with a little more care, and for a long
period ; whereas much neglect has been shewn
until lately to the same classes in other manufac-
turing towns.

But I shall bring proofs that living in separate
houses has nothing to do with cleanliness. My
proofs shall be drawn from no less a city than the
capital of France. It is notorious that the French
are not over cleanly in their habits ; and yet in
that city there are thousands of houses seven and
eight stories high, with a different family on each
floor* I resided in a house of this height, full of
families from top to bottom. Each floor consists
of a complete house, say, one or two sitting-rooms^
dining-room, bed-rooms and closets, with a cabinet
d'aisance. The bed-rooms are paved with tiles, as
are most of the upper staircases, so that fire is
impossible. The rooms are lively and delightful
owing to their having so many handsome windows.
Unfortunately, water is not laid on by pipes, so
that people have to fetch from the fountains ; but
then there is a small cistern fixed outside one
window on each floor, with a large pipe to the
ground outside, into which all the slop and wash-
water is poured, which saves servants and poor
people from a great deal of running up and down

THE BUILDINGS REGULATION BILL. 241

Stairs. The house I was in (notwithstanding the
number of its inmates) was as clean as a new pin.
I think it was washed every day. I also visited at
a house where the family lived in the roof, they
being in rather humble circumstances. I had to
ascend about seven flights of stairs, and curiosity
induced me to count the steps ; they amounted to
one hundred and twelve, and pretty deep ones too;
and I can assure the reader it was capital exercise
for an asthmatic to mount them ; and yet the
family had a nice clean healthy nest at the top of
the house, and were the picture of health them-
selves.

I never wish to see the English people live in
houses with more than four or five stories ; yet if
they did, I am persuaded it would make all our
cities and towns incomparably more compact, and
very much more beautiful. I, however, succumb
to the old custom of separate dwellings ; but I
deny that it is the cause of more health or more
cleanliness.

If the newspapers do some good, they do a
great deal more harm. It is by such paragraphs
as the foregoing, that people have been set against
many an excellent law, and got it frittered away,
till the thing was not worth enacting; never can-
vassing a measure on a broad basis and an expand-
ed scale as if for a whole people, but distorting
it to suit some one class, or petty private interest.

I take it that the M^riter is just the sort of person
who would do any thing to prevent the improve-
ment of a town or a neighbourhood, if it, in the
most distant way, clashed with his own ideas or

R

242 GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS.

his own interests, though it were only for a short
time. If the proposed alteration is intended to
make other people more comfortable, or to benefit
a town in a general way, it is sufficient ; it imme-
diately becomes the object of his hatred.

Some people take an uncommon delight in
thwarting the advancement, improvement, or hap-
piness of their fellow-creatures. I remember a
most lovely romantic walk, the favourite resort of
young people : an envious spiteful man had watched
it for some time, and at length built a house near
the middle of it, on purpose to break up its retire-
ment and pleasantness for ever, and he effected
his malicious purpose. I was acquainted with a
clergyman, whose house commanded a delightful
view up a hill : some disagreeable people, he told
me, had erected three houses exactly in front of
his, on purpose to spoil the prospect, which he
bitterly complained of till the day of his death :
but as the builders became bankrupts immediately
after, they did not go unpunished. I knew a gentle-
man, whose country house, seated upon a hill,
commanded a view all round, till some spiteful
people built a meeting-house in such a way as to
ruin the pleasantness of the situation, and he said
it was done on purpose. I once read in the papers
of a spiteful man placing a haystack in front of a
gentleman's house, in order to spoil the view from
it, and when the hay was all gone, built a cottage
on the same spot for the same purpose.

It is truly almost a helpless task to enact laws
for the improvement of towns and buildings, or to
preserve beautiful places from malicious encroach*
ment, while such a bad spirit exists in mankind.

MODIFICATIONS OF WINDOW TAX. 243

and the newspapers encourage and blow the flame
of opposition.

In connection with the subject of building, I
take the liberty of recommending to Government
the adoption of the few following measures. — To
reduce or abolish the taxes or duties on bricks, tiles,
and window-glass, and to institute penalties on the
fabrication of bad articles of the same classes.

To greatly modify the window-tax in private
houses, by allowing each house and cottage to have
ten windows without tax, instead of only seven ; and
to abolish the system of compromise for the window-
tax, which was a most unfair thing to the rest of
the community when it was enacted to save the
pockets of the wealthy classes. To institute
taxes or penalties on all persons building streets
of a less width than a minimum fixed by law :
on ill-built houses; on small or ill-proportioned
rooms (the minimum to be fixed) ; on rooms and
stairs not well lighted ; on staircases built without
bannisters on both sides, or having steps more
than five and a half inches high ;* on ill-planned
stoves and grates ; on houses in towns having no
yards and privies ; on houses out of towns having
no gardens and privies ; on streets, lanes, courts,
and alleys, being private property, not well
drained ; on builders and other persons unneces-
sarily damaging any site or locality by ill-placed
buildings, though on their own property, for no
man has a right to injure a fellow-creature in a
Christian land.

* It is extremely painful to sick, weakly, and elderly people, to
mount stairs when the steps are higher than five and a half inches,
which is too generally the case.

R 2

244 GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS.

These and a few other regulations of like nature,
formed into an Act of Parliament, not retrospective
in effect, would work such delightful improvements
in the course of time, that everybody in the king-
dom would share in the comforts arising therefrona.

The subject of enclosing and cultivating the.
good waste land all over the kingdom, is at last
going to be taken up in earnest by the House of
Commons ; and this brings us to the consideration
of the millions of acres of bad waste land. To
cultivate the good land is no very difficult matter.
Place small colonies upon it, and the thing will be
done in a trice. But how to make the barren
land bear human beings is the grand question.

It may startle some political economists to talk
of commencing the building of new cities in Eng-
land, — I say new cities, planned as cities from
their first foundation, and not mere small towns
or villages, or emigrant settlements. A time will
arrive when something of this sort must be done
in England, all the good wasteland having been
enclosed, and nothing remaining but the bad waste
land : the frightful increase of the population,
will eventually force the nation to form some
plan to make it support its share of human
beings. It may startle political economists, but let
the subject be viewed in any light, let it be consi-
dered with the coolest brain, or argued against in
the most rational manner, England cannot escape
from the alternative of new city building.

Old cities, towns, villages and hamlets, will go
on increasing in size and doubling and trebling
their present numerous population, but this will
not change the nature of the large expanse of.

TEN NEW CITIES. 245

barren lands, and yet it must be made fruitful.
Towns must be built upon them first, to effect
that change.

I recommend Government to begin the building
of ten new cities in England, each intended to
contain three hundred thousand souls, and to be
colonized from the old cities ; the Legislature to
grant two millions Stirling a-year, for twenty
years, for the building department. The plans of
the cities to be drawn on paper, with every
improvement that science is capable of suggesting,
and engraved, and afterwards marked out on
the ground to the extent and space calculated for
the above mentioned amount of population ; every
street in a new city to have only four houses in it at
the first set off*, namely, one house on each side the
street at the top and bottom, just to show the two
lines of foot pavement, and the width of the street.
Each city to be planted in the centre of the most
barren, hungry, impracticable, useless, waste land.
Of these there are many vast tracts, amounting to
nearly twenty-four millions of acres, which can
never be made into good land for want of a
sufficiency of manure, and an amount of manual
labour, utterly impossible to be yielded by mere
isolated emigrant settlements or detached solitary
colonists.) The cities to be partially peopled
before the land be touched.

One city might be built on the Rishworth Moors,
adjoining the high-road, about half way between
the town of Oldham and the village of Rishworth,
where the high land of Blackstone Edge extends
for some miles in length, and presents an extent
of thirty or forty thousand acres of undulating

246 GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS.

useless land, of a peaty and sandy character, ia a
climate somewhat bleak for scattered settlers, and
rather scanty of water ; but the former would be-
come ameliorated in the vicinity of a city, and by
the planting of trees ; and water might be procured
by sinking wells, forming ponds, waterworks, and
aqueducts. The whole country furnishes stone for
building, and I am told there are twelve thousand
acres of moors within the boundaries of Rish worth
alone.

Perhaps it may be asked how the people of
these suddenly created cities are to get their
living? — to which I reply, by the same or by simi-
lar means as in large cities on the Continent^
which have neither trade nor manufactures, except
what is supported by and within themselves.

The houses, streets, pavements, and sewerage of
the new cities, to be built and constructed by
Government ; and the inhabitants to live rent free
the first two years, to encourage their settling.
No return to be expected from the land fpr several
years; but a progressive rent (never very high,)
to be paid for the houses.

A great deal of the money laid out on this
national work must be regarded as sunk ; but then
let it be considered what an incalculable amount
of good ten new cities, on land that was once
deemed uncultivable, would produce by absorb •
ing three millions of the surplus population. It
would be a double blessing to the country.

And whilst Government is building new cities,
that shall embrace all the science and improve-
ments in building and planning, from their first
foundation, let the wealthy classes be^^ome build-

CONCLUDING REMARKS. 247

ers, and improve their favourite towns and villages.
I can conceive no greater pleasure than that of
improving, embellishing, and beautifying the town
or village, where it is a man's destiny to spend the
greater part of his life.

Some men seem to place all their happiness in
being thought greater or richer than their neigh-
bours, and watch over the accumulation of their
wealth with unceasing solicitude, regardless of
every thing else ; but when they are about to quit
the world, they find that their wealth does not afibrd
them one atom of consolation, and more than
that, their memories are despised by their fellow-
creatures. " Well," says Mr. A. to Mr. B., ** Mr.
Plutus is gone at last !" ** Yes, and a good rid-
dance too," replies Mr. B. ; " he neither did him*
self any good with his wealth, nor any body else ;
his property will now come into the hands of a
more liberal-minded man !"

Other men, with patriot hearts, expanded minds,
and generous dispositions, use their power and
influence in benefiting their common country ;
and if their sphere be not in afiairs of state,
they engage in the more private, homely, and
more delightful pleasures of heaping benefits on
the city, town, or village where they have to pass
most of their days. They plan and lay out parks,
groves of trees, promenades or walks, dig pieces
of water, and improve rivers ; they also patronize
and share the cost of improving streets, public
buildings, roads, and bridges. When a rumour is
heard that they are confined to a sick bed, every
mind evinces its anxiety for their recovery; but
the hour is come for their departure from a well-

248 GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS.

spent life, and their departure is mourned with a
great mourning : every heart feels that a public
benefactor is gone. Their memories are revered
and handed down to posterity, as the renovators of
their town, the builders of the bridges, the archi-
tects of the streets, the embellishers of the public
walks, the founders of the public buildings, and
the endowers of the civic foundations of charity,
science, and amusement. What they did was a
pleasure to them ; but others reaped the benefit
afterwards. I have built several houses in my
time, and I can say that I never enjoyed greater
pleasure, either before or since, than while I was
engaged in the healthy and delightful occupatioa
of building.

What a satisfaction must the mind of a man feel
on his death-bed, in the reflection that he has been
useful to his fellow-creatures, and that the eye of
God saw the purity of his motives. A man of dis-
terested and exalted mind dies ! but his immortal
spirit lives with God in heaven, and his memory
in the hearts of his countrymen on earth, for ever.

Spiritually speaking, God knows the secret
motives of every man's actions, and if they spring
not from love for his brethren, they are worth no-
thing in his sight. Patriots both love their country
and their fellow-creatures, and would give every
man a palace if they could.

To conclude. I have not suggested one altera*
tion or one improvement, in any town, or in any
street, or in any building, that could not be effected
within the next thirty or forty years, without in-
jury to any living soul ; but on the contrary, to the
ultimate benefit of both public and private in<^

CONCLUDING REMARKS, 249

terests, estates, and fortunes. But professional
men and tradespeople, are so wedded to their
old rules and customs, especially architects and
builders, that I do not expect any of these classes
will adopt my recommendations; nevertheless I
have not allowed this consideration to deter me
from giving this little book publicity, for " Time
worketh miracles," and every innovation on old
customs requires a long period for its examination,
trial, and sentence. The utility, or comfort, or
beauty of any thing new, meets with a variety of
opinions and cavils : — while one thing will ap-
pear self-evident at first sight ; a second, though
not actually resisted, yet is accepted so reluctantly
that it requires some period to elapse before it
fully strikes the understanding ; a third will be
resisted with pertiiaacity a good while, but at last
is received ; and a fourth is resisted permanently,
and no impression of its usefulness can be made
upon mankind, who reject it altogether, although
it might make earth a very paradise if adopted.
There has always been some strong private interest
that could not be overcome — and there always
will be.

Such is the reception which I may predict for
my " Suggestions," which I now leave to their
fate.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR,
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A NEW

DECIMAL SYSTEM

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MONEY, WEIGHTS, MEASURES, AND

TIME,

PROPOSED FOR ADOPTION IN GREAT BRITAIN.

^MA^t^««MMW^<«#^«V^»^^^W^^%«'^

CONTENTS.

Chap. I. — Decimal Coinage and Decimal Division of Money in Accounts.

II. — Decimal Division in Time.

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IV. — Decimal Measures of Capacity.

V. — Decimal Division of Weights.

VI.— Tables for making a Uniform, Universal and International
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